Brainstorming of Boundaries

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 17 July 2014.

Johnny Bee Badanjek

That's an interesting idea with the podcast. I do like a lot of those influences you mentioned and have been a fan of the podcast genre generally. We actually got a good condenser mic at one point, thinking we might do a podcast on Catholic marriage, family, culture, etc.

I guess my concern is that podcasting actually does take a lot of work: coming up with content, lining up interviewees (actors?), and producing it to the level heard on most of the popular ones. It's definitely a step down from Hollywood, but it's still quite a step up from what we're currently doing.

But I'm not saying it's impossible...I guess I just need to visualize the logistics. What would a typical episode consist of? Who would need to be rounded up in order to conduct "interviews" and how would we prep them?

Many podcasts actually use something like a blog as a placeholder on the web, with the primary interface being iTunes. That being the case, I think I could keep going with the blog and post a podcast there and on iTunes whenever we have one complete. Maybe we'll find that the podcast finally hijacks the blog and takes it over, such that the other stuff becomes "extras," which many of those podcast websites try to furnish as well.

It might be cool to show up at something real, like the rebuilding of I-375, and ask some impertinent questions related to the project, like, "Will there be any attempt that that point to exhume the bodies of those buried?" and "Do the Detroit police plan on reopening the case?" or some other questions that blend reality with myth. It would be cool to corner some actual official and ask him or her a bunch of questions about our project. We could do this with them "in the know," or sort of like an Ali G approach, where he interviews legitimate cultural commentators who seem to have no idea that the show is a farce.

I guess we could spend some time brainstorming real people who should have known something about Arthur White (if Arthur White had indeed existed) like Johnny Bee Badanjek, a retired nun from a school he went to, etc. At some point, I'm feeling a little guilty about misrepresenting ourselves, but we could do a little ethical brainstorming of boundaries that will nonetheless allow those interviews to be edgy.