The Gastrocast

 Prompted, or was it taunted? by Lloyd I did some digging into my magic box of the Past. Somehow this box has developed a leak, because it seems to contain so much less now than it does in my memory–perhaps I purged all those photos of me with companions not my wife. . . . Nevertheless I dug up these treasures Circa 1988-92.

 

Not many other head-shots exist of me out there–so enjoy!



Click either one and be transported to the Paris of my Down & Out Gastrocast. I couldn’t find many photos pre1988–that damn hole in the box. . . .I did stumble on my Venice photos and my trip to New Orleans for Graduate School in 1989. I couldn’t even bare to look.  Theoretically there is another, earlier Passport photo of me but even if I could find it I can’t imagine I look anything else but baby-faced. There should also be a Student Identity Card from Ireland which made my age out 6 years older than I was–a boon when I came back to the States and was still 3 years away from the Legal Drinking Age. That it, when flashed quickly, looked like something Governmental and Official didn’t hurt either. Likewise, I cannot find that one, horrid photo of me-self roving the Irish Countryside on an epic pub crawl–actually we (someone. . .not me. . .and I didn’t say any of us had brains–ever. . . ) drove at breakneck speed from Dublin to Galway, stopping at least 8 times a whatever roadside pub was the least number of steps from the car-park. At some point I developed a Migrane and put on the only pair of sunglasses in the blasted motor–a large pair of womans "goggles" from the 60s. A few miles outside of Galway we stopped the 7th time and took a group photo. I may have burnt it, but if I ever find it–it will go here as a warning for current generations: driving across Ireland and 8 Pints of Guinness by 2pm will get you wrecked in one way or another.

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 Nothing really. . . .But I sometimes commandeer this blog other, but closely related reasons.



I just listened to a stellar interview by Nicole Simone of Crueltobekind of Lloyd Davis about podcasting’s other uses. All this is in preparation of PodcastCon UK 2005. Since I am neither going to PodcastconUK, nor am I a British Podcaster (although I do play one twice nightly in an all drag revue) I decided not to comment on either of their blogs, but make my thought’s known to the world here knocking politely on their posts via Trackback.



I say stellar interview not just to get you to read more, and perhaps even listen to the audio, but because it resonated several chords with me. For many podcasting is their chance to play radio-god wannabe, or to strut their stuff a bit farther afield than their bedroom closet. Fair play to em. To be sure there is a podcasting community which embraces all. But there are those of us on the fringe, doing what we like, how we like with no heed to consequence. We are not following the crowd–don’t have "Pod-safe" music on our shows, don’t play by the new rules (don’t as me what these are–I don’t play by them. . . .). We do random promos, are rarely interviewed, and hold a minority fan-base. And yet we are here.



We occupy Podcastings information wing, for the most part. I hardly think our shows would be improved with the words, "And here’s another great tune from. . . ." in the middle of a soundseeing tour of London, a discussion of the latest technology or a Filet Mignon (which I won’t be cooking anytime soon on the Gastrocast unless I get a paying sponsor. . .). All this goes to show that while the Big Corps have iTunes Dominance and the newer versions of Top of the Pops have a market share at the moment, diversity in the medium is necessary and required. Podcasting has other uses and they are being explored.



Just this week I had word back from the President of the IACP, wanting to know more about podcasting and how they can integrate it into their organization. It took several emails to get a response, but the growing popularity of the format finally rang a few bells and it’s finally beginning to mean something to the general public and those in large organizations. Think what it could do for FEMA or The Red Cross?

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 In more ways than one, news this week is all about White Washing the truth.



Now, I’ve taken a deeper interest in the Tradgedy that is Post Katrina New Orleans. I’m not sure why–other than this is the single most horrific thing I have seen in our country in my life, and that I probably have too much free time on my hands.  However, the images in the last two days have been irritating me. It was one thing to show the huddled masses in the Convention Center, or the Superdome and speculate about their plight as the hours rolled by while nothing appeared to be happening. It was one thing to show humankind’s decent into stress-induced primative Barbarism. But the faces in these images were largely Black. Now that New Orleans is mostly evacuated of the living and the only Blacks they can show us they won’t–everything in the news is mostly White again. MSNBC, and CNN yesterday afternoon were only showing White grannies and Black babies being rescues. But what really tipped the scales for me was this FEMA photo page this morning. Not only is there a visible shift in the color spectrum, but there is also a shift in reality.



FEMA in some lame effort to once again remove itself from the taint of responsability in the matter has chosen 12 photos showing, in essence, the shiny, happy people of the tragedy.  Not a hair out of place, no dripping sewer sludge, and less than 50% black content.  Maybe I’ve lived on an island for too long, but I thought this sort of jaundice only remained in people over 70. I know this is AMERICA and I shouldn’t expect anything else, but come on–this is AMERICA! We should be completely color-blind at this point. Stark contrasts in the news–visible white-balancing should only be in digital cameras not the News–should go the way of subjective reporting. Oh, I realise that Bigotry will always exist. Prejudice is ever present–against all kinds of people. But if we have to be prejudiced and bigotted can’t it be against the Republicans? Or the Libertarians? I mean what have they ever done for us, dirty white-collar pricks? Eh?

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