Repository of Useless Information
... and i'd probably enjoy your show if you won--but you didn't convince you that you want to be on the radio--just maybe that we deserve you.
Thank you for the comment, Don, but I feel as though I am as 'convinced' as I can be, considering that I am a gainfully employed 'mundane' (Customer Service tech. in the IT industry), married, and with a 3-year-old son...
My personal, pragmatic 'philosophy' is to invest as much 'conviction' I can, in the hopes of possibily moving on to the next round, -but- not so much that I would be *devastated* if I am not selected.
Suffice to say, *if* I do move on, I can devote even more and more 'personal resources' to the next rounds. But as you implied, my life does not revolve around the Public Radio Talent Quest.
However, it -can-, if I am one of those lucky few to move on to the next Rounds...
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Unknown
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/5408
I wish you would have started with "The Yellos Mamba (spelled right?) Tribe." That is where your piece picked up, where you finally became real for me, where you seemed to drop in. Your co-workers are right, I think, but all the set-up was unnecessary and you could have then had more time for more useless trivia and your wonderful voice.
Anya,
Thank you very much for the comment! >:)
For a while there, I didn't think anyone was listening to my "two-minute bite"...
I am sorry that I lost you in the beginning of my 'blurb', but I am very glad you stuck around for the finish! >:D
I am the product of too many 'mean' English teachers and professors, and I have been ingrained with the need to preface everything I do... My two-minutes was no exception.
If I had had about 4 minutes, then I might have dredged up something else as a contrast to the 'Yamamamo tidbit', like how a bush in my back yard generates "water-pods" when it gets too wet (to seal the excess of water, and keep the bush from 'drowning'), or that every almost every culture in the world as some form of 'vampire' myth (a creature that steals life from others to maintain itself; my favorite is the "Adze/Asasabonsam", which is an African version of the vampire, that has hooks for feet, so it can hang upside down readily, and is easily detected if you don't allow anyone inside your home wearing shoes), or going over the "Suicide Proof" for the 'Many-Worlds Theory' of Quantum Mechanics (as opposed the 'Copenhagen Interpretation', which in laymen's terms means -nothing- happens unless it is -observed- "A tree falling in a forest makes no sound, because without an observer, the tree's state is in flux; neither fallen *or* upright, until the flux is resolved by an observer.)
Hhmn... Maybe four minutes would not have been enough...
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Unknown
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/5408
Good words - 'fitty cent' words as a particularly articulate friend calls them - are hard to find in everyday conversation. Repository is one of those words I pull out of the hat to scare people. Likewise, ennui is another one that is thoroughly enervating in day-to-day conversation. Takes the wind out of everybody's sails - makes them scurry over to dictionary.com.
Okay, now that I got that out of the way, I found your lassitude intriguing. It's a terrible catch-22 - your comic style is so dry, yet if you tried to be more engaging, you'd lose that distinctive apathy that separates your entry from so many other peppier ones.
Do I think you'll move to Round Two? Probably not. But do I think someone from PRX or somewhere else will tap you on the shoulder and ask you to submit commentary for use on NPR? Absolutely, because you're so different, and because you have something to say which, in many ways, is useless but notable.
I enjoyed that slice of pie you're offering us. It got me thinking.
-- Linda
Visit me in my House by the Sea:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/1432
http://blog.syracuse.com/communitycritics/linda_lowen/
Linda,
Thank you very much for stopping by, and giving my entry a listen! >:D
I learned early in school, since I didnt have the 'physical aspect' to be 'sporty', I had to use my brain to keep from being picked on. Nothing, it seems, drives a bully or arrogant jock away faster than to use words completely outside their vocabulary list of 500 words or less.
But the question is, am I -really- smart and intelligent, or am I simply good at being a 'mental chameleon'?
And yes, I don't hold out much hope that I will make it into the preceding Rounds, but, as I said in my one comment, at -least- I will not go to my eventual demise with the regret of never having tried for this contest. >:)
But... But, if by some miracle... I should happen to be able to produce a show for public radio... I am torn as to what its theme would be. It is somewhere between "The Angry Liberal" and the "Useless Information" show...
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Unknown
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/5408
Hey Wayne,
I totally appreciate your self deprecating humor. It is a form of self honesty and an attempt at relating those honest assesments to others while wrapped in a crunchy, sarcastic shell. I find myself doing that all the time, too. But lately, I have been trying to edit those comments out of my repetoire.
I love the useless information, too. Although, information just needs to find the right application. I saw an episode of Scientific American, the PBS show with Alan Alda, this week and one of the articles was about a scientist who studies everday phenomena like coffee stains in the hopes that that "useless" information will have practical applications.
Anyway, I digress. I love the bit about the males of the tribe blowing powder up each other's noses. It seems so intimate. In a jungle tribe, half naked, gettin high kind of way.
Joseph! >:D
Thank you -so- much for listening to my entry and commenting! It brought a wide grin to my otherside dreary morning! >:)
Yeah, my 'Repository' (aka: brain) is rather funny, in a way... I remember little 'tidbits' like this forever, but names of some of my co-workers completely slip by...
What most people consider very important information just drop into my mental 'bit-bucket', while gems like these just 'stick' around:
- An 'Irish Car-Bomb' is a drink made of a mug of good Irish beer, with a shot glass full of a good Irish whiskey drop into the center of the mug.
If drunk quickly, one gulps beer with a small 'slip' of whiskey to give "added flavor"...
- Guinness beer is the only beer in the world whose 'head' foam bubbles actually run -down- the inside of the glass. This is because the bubbles are of nitrogen gas, not carbon dioxide, which form smaller bubbles.
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Unknown
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/5408
Procrastination and Apathy are dear old friends. Brains are a funny thing. I don't try to force myself to remember things to often. If it's important I try and write it down (at least that's what I try to do, sometimes I forget to.) My theory about the brain is that it is like a wall and information is like a wet spaghetti noodle. If the noodle is wet enough it will stick around on the wall. And so you end up with a ton of wet noodles on the wall. If a new wet noodle hits a large patch of other wet noodles already stuck on the wall, then it has a more likely chance of sticking as well. But if a new wet noodle hits a dry patch of wall, it might stick around for a few minutes, but then dry out and fall off.
So... um... what that has to do with anything... I'm not sure...
I'm not sure what to really say about this piece. I mean, you sound like you really don't care about entering this contest, both through what you said and how you said it. I'll commend you for your attitude, but I'm not sure if your apathy is an act or not.
It was interesting to know about the hallucinogen facts. I don't consider that useless information. Hell, you obviously have a nack for facts and an excellent memory. I just thought your presentation needed a little work. I hope that helps.
Yeah, I have to agree that my presentation was not the best, considering some of the -fantastic- entries I have heard so far.
However, I am happy with it, just for the simple fact that I at least tried.
Normally, I am a motivationless 'rock', pinned by my own internal intertia. But 'things' came together last week to give me a swift kick in the keister, and I am in amazement of myself that I actually 'followed-through' with something.
If by some miracle that I should happen to make it to the next round, I will -definitely- take your advice for my next presentation/challenge.
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Anonymous
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/5408
Well, there you go. My audio entry for Round 1 in the PublicRadioQuest.com contest.
Now, regardless if the outcome, I can go to my eventual death-bed *without* this particular regret. >:)
- Wayne Powers
"Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average..." Anonymous
...I think I can say with certainty that I never knew that, LOL!! Good piece. :)
Check out my entry, "The Sonic Lab With Matt Boland", at http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/4472
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