Driving for eight to twelve hours between New Mexico and the vast state of Texas there was one thing that got me through without giving in to sleep or boredom: audiobooks. Listening to a story being vocalized is a vastly different experience than reading it. You experience your sense of hearing differently than your eye sight and are perhaps more able to picture the characters and setting in your mind's eye as the plains wizz by. When it comes to radio, however, once the music stops and I hear a single speaking voice I will change the station so fast you would not notice the shift. This is true for all, but one radio show.
While living up in Seattle there was a station on the hour long drive to work from our First Hill micro-flat to the Alderwood Mall which my wife and I would listen to the entirety of: MOViN 92.5's Awkward Tuesday Phone Call. So engrossed were we that often, if the segment had not ended by the time we got to the mall parking lot, we would sit and listen until the end.
This show would host single dating individuals, mostly male, who wanted to know why they never heard back after the first date. The two announcers would call the (for the sake of argument let's say she is female) girl and, when she answered, they would say they are calling on behalf of (again for argument's sake lets say he is male) a guy she went on one date with and ask why she never called him back back. Now, as the girl recounted what inevitably proved to be just an atrocity of a courting attempt, she was completely unaware that the guy was listening on another line. Many times when it got to be too much embarrassment or they became defensive the guy would speak. The girl would be surprised or embarrassed. All around, the guy learned something valuable about how to treat a date and we all got a good laugh out of the ordeal.
So, why was this the only radio segment I could stand? I think that the talk show, blended with the interview segment and just enough storytelling—mixed in with some sound effects to make it believable—created an effective digital story. I kept tuning into this radio show every day because I knew what to expect and that it would be entertaining. Podcasts are further evolved than radio in the fact that it is not a phenomena you can miss if you don't tune in at the right time. A podcast can be downloaded, listened to anywhere at any time on nearly every conceivable device. Thankfully this radio show is hip to the times and produces the live segment as a podcast so we are still able to listen to Awkward Tuesday Phone Call on our drive to work.
If I were to create a podcast it would be a non-fictional lifestyle podcast recounting my experiences with trans-masculine issues like healthy eating, working out, and fashion. In the oral storytelling tradition it would be a single narrator, me. I would recount daily dramas something to the effect of OlanRogers stories on Youtube only via audio instead. I would definitely use some underlying music and minor sound effects, but since I have quite a range (from my past being trained as a classical vocalist and changing vocal registers through my transition) I would use my voice to change character like Bryan Alexander says of Nick DiMeo "swinging his tone across emotional registers."
Citations
Alexander, Bryan. The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media Revised and Updated Edition. Santa Barbara, California • Denver Colorado: Praeger An Imprint of ABC-CLIL, LLC, 2017. Print.