I’ve had a few listeners suggest some paranormal personalities, some who I’ve not even been aware of, so I’ve kind of investigated a little bit into them. There’s a psychic from a show [The Dead Files] – Amy Allan – and I’d never heard of her until someone suggested it and so I’m researching her. I don’t know if she would or how hard it would be to reach her but since that’s one of the biggest reasons why I got into the whole paranormal thing - that would be pretty cool.
I think a lot of people would love to peek behind the curtain a little bit, of the whole paranormal reality show. You know, is there stuff that shouldn’t go on behind the scenes? Is it all really real? How much of it is editing? How much of it is the fact that it’s produced? Sometimes I wonder, when I watch some of those shows, ‘are you still into this? Are you into it or are you just happy to have this cool gig with cameras following you?’ If you take away the cameras, would they still be out there getting no sleep, sitting in the dark all night long doing it? I really do think we’re in a heightened (it’s been a little over a decade now) paranormal craze and I really do think that eventually we’re gonna kinda come off of this craze; and the real paranerds are gonna still be there and I hope I’m still there. I don’t know, whether it’s 10, 15, 20 years from now when all the ghost hunters are retired or old, I want to be able to get that interview - [imitates older voice] ‘What was it like back in the day when you were on TV and what was really real and how was that?’ Maybe they’ll talk then. They’ll tell us all, when it’s all over.
[John] That’s awesome.
[Patrick] Yeah, the Ghost Hunter Retirement Centre. We’ll visit them all – see if we can get them all to talk. Ghost Hunter Manor.
[John] Could you imagine all of the supposed hauntings that would then happen as everybody is losing it as they get older? That could be a TV show in and of itself!
[Patrick] It also makes me think of when I die and cross over, and you know a lot of spiritual people will say ‘oh my gosh I can’t believe you would say that’ but I might not want to cross over immediately. I might want to go hang out at the Stanley for a while.
I might want to go to the creepiest location that has just been famous for being haunted and check it out. How do we know that Trans-Allegheny Asylum – how do we know that all those people haunting that place are really old patients? Maybe they’re just former ghost hunters that think, ‘Hey that was a cool place man!’?
[John] I have been saying, since I was probably about 13 or 14 years old, that when I die I want to hang out for a bit. I want to haunt people - not to scare anybody, legitimately; I just want to have a little bit of fun.
[Patrick] Experience it. Be on the other side of it.
[John] Exactly. If I go before you Patrick, I’m going to do my best to come by and play some tricks on you.
[Patrick] Oh will you please?
[John] Oh yeah!
[Lana] John will actually get your Ouija to work!
[John] Oh!
[Patrick] It’s funny because my mom and I definitely have a plan. I think probably my sister has a plan too. My mom, when she dies, she is going to come over to my house and write in the dust because I tend to not like dusting. That’s kind of a thing with us because growing up she used to always make me dust. She didn’t like dusting either so I always had to dust. Now that I’m an adult and have my own place, the place looks awesome – the place looks fabulous and everything is in its place – but don’t lick any of the surfaces because everything is dusty. So she knows that she can come somewhere and write in the dust, something like ‘Hi, it’s Mom’ or something. With her, she knows to be looking somewhere on her nightstand. I’m going to be messing with things that are on the nightstand definitely. That’s gonna be my calling card right there.
[John] I keep saying I’m going to be the one who, as you put your coffee cup down and you turn away to do something, when you come back your coffee cup is going to be on the other side of the room.
[Patrick] I’m going to write that down. I’m going to remember that. Of course, hopefully by the time you die, we will both be very old and the question will then be, am I senile? ‘The coffee cup didn’t just move over there. I’m just crazy.’
[John] So in that case, I’ll do it to everyone else around as well so they don’t think you’re the only crazy one.
[Patrick] There will be no question.
[John] It will be a collective crazy.
You have sort of indirectly answered the next question but I’m now going to go for the direct answer. What tips would you have for anybody who is really interested in getting into podcasting?
[Patrick] I would say if you are going to search for how-to stuff, try to get it from one source so that you get everything in context; because there is a lot of suggestions about mics, a lot of suggestions about little techy things that you might not necessarily need yet. Don’t get the whole, entire podcaster package from the beginning because there are a lot of people that start - I think they say episode seven is the magic episode where people either decide they can’t do it and they give up or they keep going. So maybe you get some cheaper equipment. There are some cheaper USB microphones you can get and do a couple episodes and see what you think. Even before you invest in getting the server space, like I have libsyn (libsyn is the most popular), just go to one place so that you can get accurate information from that one person. If you get pieces from here and there, that could be kind of dangerous - you could be missing something. You know, Jim Harold’s course was really good too and it was a course that I feel like I could trust with the information I was getting; but technology keeps changing. You can do it for free - there is not anything really that you have to pay for. There is enough information out there - just be careful getting information from a lot of different sources.
Know what you are going to podcast about. I think that is a big thing in podcasting. Some people get fascinated with the whole speaking on the mic thing and then they get their podcast and it is like `Oh what was I going to talk about? What do we have that we can talk about?’ Know your passion first. Pick your niche and go with that. Is that nerdy enough?
[Lana] That was good, yeah.
Going to try to get you to go out on a limb now. As of when we recorded this interview, you will have 48 episodes. What do you have planned for number 50? It is a landmark – it’s a milestone.
[Patrick] Oh my gosh! Like I said earlier, I really don’t have anything planned. [Episode] 49 is you guys. It might be something that I mention, maybe. When I think of 50, I’ve heard a lot of people celebrate huge on episode 100 and 200 so it seems kinda silly for me to celebrate on 50. To me, it’s more of a big deal once I hit that two-year mark. Probably that will be more of a celebration for me than the number 50. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it actually. At the beginning of every episode when I say ‘this is episode whatever’ that’s really the first time I think of it. I have to look back to see what number it is and by that point the episode is already done so I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it until you said that. No pressure.
[John] Okay, well I’m challenging you now to think about it because 100 is huge and your two-year mark is huge. We just realized we never acknowledged our one-year mark of the blog but I’m going to challenge you to make 50 something special for you. Not for your listeners but make it special for you.
[Patrick] Okay. There is plenty of nerdiness for me. I can really be selfish. I’m good at being selfish. I can bust out some nerdiness.
[John] Go for it.
[Lana] Maybe the next question could lead into something you could do for the 50th then. Do you have any plans of doing anymore Live and Interactive video podcasts?
[Patrick] Karen, who was in my first Live and Interactive Video, she definitely is trying to get me to do another one. That was kind of a big step for me. Like I said at the beginning, as someone who is not incredibly social - someone who wants to be the best recluse ever when I grow up, I am very reclusive and proud of it usually. So being on camera, like hiding behind a mic is cool but being on camera, I was a little nervous. Plus, you know, I edit. Nothing I ever did was live. You can plan out what you’re going to say and edit out those stumbles and dorky things you say (like plenty of them that I’ve said tonight). It was a little nerve-wracking to be live on camera and not knowing what’s going to happen but I think there’s probably another one coming. I would probably need to investigate some tech things to make it sound better and it is getting better. Now there’s a thing called Blab that I guess everyone is doing. Blab.im - I think a lot of podcasters are doing that. People can chat and be interactive. There’s a couple different platforms, just in the last six months, have come up on the scene. So I know the sound quality and things are getting better. I was not super excited about the sound quality of that whole experience. It was cool to have the video. It was cool to have live interaction, which I had never done, that whole radio show kind of feel. So I think that will probably happen again. I’m hoping I can get it to sound better. That’s my hang up with it but it was fun and Karen is an awesome person to experiment on things like that with because she can just go on for like four hours without me being there.
[John] She also seems like an incredibly supportive person too, and that makes a really big difference.
[Patrick] Oh yeah. She’s very much like a coach. She is very busy too. There is sometimes when - well with me too - there are some parts of the year where I’m just non-existent because there’s so many things going on at school and concert season as a music teacher. But when she’s available, oh my gosh she helps so much – she’s been there for me in many ways. Not even just with the Ouija board. She is good for inspiration and very approachable. I think that’s probably the case with anybody who has tried to reach out to Karen. She’s really a cool lady.
[John’s note: At the time of publishing this article, Patrick has released Episode #50 – please go and check it out! Um… maybe after you’re done reading this article though.]
[John’s note: As we moved forward with our interview, Lana and I really pushed to try to get some more podcast news out of Patrick. We were clearly making Patrick think hard about his future…]
[Lana] Is there any other podcast-related news you’d like to share?
[Patrick] [John’s note: Patrick had to pause and think for a while before answering this one.] I’m trying a new windscreen on my microphone to keep me from popping my p’s.
[Lana] Sounds like it is working.
[Patrick] I’m actually doubling up. I’ve had a pop filter from the very beginning but apparently my p’s are so incredibly massive. Usually you only use a windscreen when you are outside in the elements and I was like ‘maybe I need to combine a windscreen with the pop filter’ and I think it has helped a little bit.
That’s probably not the exciting news you wanted.
[John] We’ll make it flashy for you. Maybe you could throw in a little song there. Maybe you could sing it for us.
[Patrick] WHAAAAT?!?
[Lana] A very small audio clip.
[John’s note: This suggestion clearly did not jive with Patrick, though I maybe haven’t stopped thinking about it and I maybe am wondering if I can eventually get Patrick to agree to a wee ditty.]
[Patrick] No you will not be getting me singing.
It is probably embarrassing how much I don’t have a plan right now. I was really worried right before Hallowe’en because last year I remember I had a lot more time to plan ahead and there were some weeks when I did have two episodes ready to go. This has been a busier year and I haven’t been able to put as much focus as I did before. I was kinda bummed for a while because I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do for the Hallowe’en season, which is the biggest time paranormal nerds are out there looking for content. So I feel I kinda just squeaked by that Hallowe’en season. I tried to do as many episodes as I could. I went weekly for about three weeks I guess, four weeks maybe. Usually every other week is it during the normal part of the year – I’m doing good if I can do every other week. I think part of that is I’ve learned to produce better and that might not necessarily be a good thing. That has maybe taken away from the more natural ‘whatever comes out’ kind of thing. There is a fine line between over-produced and there is a lot of things I take out and tweak that I can make sound better. Maybe I need to scale down some of that so I’m not spending 15 hours on one episode. If I cut that down, maybe I can have an episode every week. It just depends on what people like. Do people listen because - it is kinda the trend with podcasts nowadays is to have them be more produced. This American Life and Serial, you know everything is so produced (even though they’ve got a team of 20 doing it). Did that answer any question there?
[John] It did.
[Patrick] I’m usually pretty okay with there not being a plan. I would like there to be a plan. I’m more likely to have a plan when summer hits and I’m on a break, you know, when I can sit down with an old fashioned pen and paper and brainstorm on some things. Kind of like [John] said when you come home from work and you think of writing and it’s just not there. Sometimes you just don’t have any energy left for it. Although I will say I’m a late-night person and you’ve seen that, when I’m online. When I come back from school, that’s when I start falling asleep - before dinner. If I sit down before dinner I’m [snoring] in the chair but once eight o’clock hits, BOOM! I [eventually] have to remind myself that it’s probably time to go and get about four hours of sleep before I have to get up and do this whole thing all over again. That’s when the creative juices happen, so sometimes I get to planning then.
[Lana] So we did the interview too early today!
[Patrick] Well you probably noticed I tried to push it off a little longer than probably you would have liked to do.
[John] Oh it’s cool. I’m just going to make Lana stay up all night to start working on [transcribing] while I go to sleep.
[Patrick] It doesn’t matter how early I have to get up, I’m always gonna be a late-nighter. Summer is bad - it will sometimes stretch to four in the morning.
[Lana] Yeah, me too. We’ve probably talked around that time.
[Patrick] This morning, I woke up at 9:30. I could have easily woken up at 10:00 and most people can’t do that because they’re used to waking up at 6:30 so they naturally wake up at 6:30. Uh-uh. When school gets out, it takes me only a day to get into summer mode.
I know people say that you can’t stock up on sleep but, man, weekends - don’t mess around with my sleep. I hate the process of winding down and going to sleep on the weekends but once I’m asleep it’s nice. If I don’t have to be up, I am sleeping in. When you don’t have kids, you can be selfish. It’s a lot easier to do it that way.
[John] Although I’m sure Meril keeps you busy in the morning.
[Patrick] He does but my partner is usually the early morning person and I am not; there are times when we go to bed three or four hours apart so actually that allows for it. He can be up first thing in the morning, because I’ll take [Meril] out at 2:00 in the morning and he enjoys his late night walks. He’s kind of a night dog too. He generally likes when things are quiet. That’s when he eats. When things are really quiet and you’re trying to sleep you’ll hear [chomping sounds] at two in the morning. That’s when I guess he’s more comfortable, when things are quiet. From the time he was a puppy. He was better walking down the street – [where we lived] there were a lot town homes and so there were a lot people walking down the street, a lot of cars and everything – and I could tell that when it was dark and later at night he could relax more. He’s just like ‘This whole street is mine!’ Maybe I’ve rubbed off on him a little bit with some of my anxieties.
