ESSAY-SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN THE NEXT DAY OR TWO (LISTEN FOR IT)

So I’m sitting here writing, and I know that I haven’t posted anything in a while.

It’s not because I’m depressed.

The thing is…I’m working on something.

Look, I may as well tell you: yes, I like writing things that you read, but I like it infinitely more when I write things that you hear.

This is a problem for YouTube, because when I make a YouTube movie, I get all hung up on what it looks like. It never looks that good, because I’m not good at visuals.

Then there’s the whole thing of syncing up the picture with the sound. That never works, either.

And anyway, all of this revolves around what you see.

I admit to being self conscious about what you see. Somehow, when I make YouTube films, I notice that my nostrils are enormous. There’s a huge space between my front teeth, and I have this huge wattle about which I’m massively self-conscious.

For this reason, for a while, I just want to focus on recording audio. Audio is a great thing, because it requires a lot less money to get it to a professional level. With video, you need a massively expensive camera, a decent set of lights, and some knowledge of how to record everything with the right exposures.

Audio is a lot simpler. With a Zoom recorder and a Heil PR 40 microphone, you pretty much have everything you need. This sets you back a couple of hundred bucks, and there you are…professional sound.

So I want to try something different on YouTube.

What I intend to do is start making YouTube videos where, for the first minute or so (but no more), you see my old, sagging mug, and hear the tinny sound of my laptop’s microphone. I tell you that I’m going to count to five, and that I need you to shut your eyes; I will recommend that you either listen to me with a decent set of headphones, or with a decent set of speakers. It is at this point that I hope that you do as I ask.

It’s worth your while anyway, because at that point, the screen will be black. There’s no reason for it to be otherwise. At that point, with your eyes closed, you’re providing the visuals anyway, and they’re probably going to be a lot better than the visuals I could provide with my limited video creation capabilities.

The audio will suddenly become dramatically better. My voice will become far more rich than it had been the moment before.

I will suddenly be thirty years younger. I will be thinner.

And if this works the way that I hope it will work, you will be in my world.
While you are in my world, you will hear the things that you’d previously read. I may very well continue to write essays, but now you’ll be taking them in through your ears, not your eyes.

You may very well hear stories from time to time. This whole idea of mine has me far more interested in stories than I’ve been in a long time.

As I’ve often said, this blog that I’ve been doing is more than just a creative endeavor for me; it’s a creative process. I try some things, and then, when they don’t quite work out, I take a break, regroup, and try something else.

I have no idea if this whole audio thing will work out or not. And yes, I know that I can do a podcast, but they’re logistically confusing, and anyway, I don’t want to do something that long. No, I just want to get my words out there, and YouTube is the most accessed medium around these days.

So that’s it. Soon, I’ll be posting videos that aren’t really videos. You’ll see me for thirty to sixty seconds, politely asking you to close your eyes. At that point, you will, I hope, close your eyes. And then, for a little while, I ask that you just listen.

​Give me a day or two. I’ll have the first of a number of things up here. It’s just something I want to try.