The Confluence Cast

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The Confluence Cast

Nov 12, 2018 · 1h 9m

With a little over two years of episodes out in the world, it’s high time to give a little more behind the scenes on how the Confluence Cast gets made. This is a rebroadcast of an episode I recorded with the local podcast the Sounds of Bustown. They interviewed me about where the Confluence Cast came from, what the goals for it are, and how the show gets made.

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, a very special episode. It's been about two years since we launched the Confluence Cast, so I thought it was high time that we talked about what we're trying to do here. This is a rebroadcast of an episode from our friends at the Sounds of Bustown, who interviewed me about where this podcast came from, what the goals are, how the sausage gets made, and we happen to go a little too in depth on Back to the Future. Just a heads up that this episode contains expletives, mostly from me, and it isn't as heavily edited as some of our other episodes. So I do say "um" a lot. I hope this episode provides a little insight into what we're trying to accomplish and provides me a bit of accountability to keep it up going forward. You can get more information on what we've discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. Support for this episode of the Confluence Cast comes from Little Rock Bar. Little Rock Bar is located at 944 North Fourth Street in Italian Village. With 30 beers on tap, Little Rock Bar has happy hour from 4:00 to 7:00 PM every day. Every Tuesday, get $3 draft beers all night while you enjoy Rock Your Cock Off karaoke. Wednesdays is Everybody's a Comedian, hosted by Travis Haywisher. It's like trivia, but you prove your snark instead of smarts. Again, that's Little Rock Bar. Everyone's night should have a little rock. Enjoy the interview. I don't need headphones? Nope. Unless you want them, you can wear mine. Uh- Does it feel weird?

It feels a little weird. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah, just a little bit. I got you. Don't worry about it.

Okay. You- Do I sound okay? You sound great.

Okay, great. So. What do you wanna talk about? Uh, your podcast.

Do you have a standard intro that you do? I do bumpers, so, like, I've already introduced everybody to what we're about to hear. But you don't ever... 'Cause I always do the bumper, and then I start, and then I have, like, my theme music goes up. Yeah.

And then it drops out, and it always starts with, uh... What does it start with? Do you have a formula? Okay, hold on. Do you wanna introduce yourself, introduce yourself and say what podcast you do? Absolutely. Okay.

My name's Tim Fulton. I'm the host of The Confluence Cast- Excellent ... presented by Columbus Underground. Do you legally have to say that every time?

I am not contractually obligated to say "presented by Columbus Underground." Just force of habit at this point. Yeah. It's wh- I mean, I don't say it in dinner conversations. Okay.

They're like, "What's your podcast?" I'm like, "It's called The Confluence Cast." "You can find it on Columbus Underground." You know, there's a pod- 'cause there's always a blank stare when you say The Confluence Cast. Right. And they're like, they're like, "I know that word, but I don't know what that means." It's the joining of two rivers. That's, that's what a confluence is. I was actually at a thing right before this, and it was, uh, at, it was, like, some host committee for an event at the museum, and they asked everybody to do, like, get to know you exercises. Yeah.

And the get to know you exercise was tell us what the, uh, what the movement of sound is. Stop. Yeah. And there were, and every- and I literally just wrote the Doppler effect. Oh.

And then, parens, this is the right answer, close parens. New parens, this is an asshole answer. Like, this is, that's what it is. I mean, and so everybody went around the room and it was like every, at every table was like, we talked about fabric, or we talked about trees, or we talked about silence, or we talked about, someone talked about the Industrial Revolution. 'Cause it's, it's a movement. Right. Sort of. Yeah.

Uh, and the people at my table were like, "Why aren't you giving your answer? It's the right one." I was like, "Because look at the second parens." Yeah. "It's the asshole answer." Everybody's gonna be like, "Wah, wah." The fucking trivia guy. Yeah. The guy, the guy that's like, "There's no fun to be had."

Right. This isn't an outside the box thing. Every- Yeah

... everything is right or wrong here. Which is not how I approach interviews, I don't think. Hmm. So, so The Confluence Cast, I'm gonna just, you know, I'm gonna answer some of the questions you're gonna have. So The Confluence Cast, we're, it's an interview-based podcast. Um, interview one person, uh, at a time normally, unless it's meant to be a panel discussion. That's pretty rare. It'll be a panel discussion if it's like a, frankly, if someone basically says, "I'm not comfortable doing this by myself." Yeah.

Or, "Hey, I don't wanna do this by myself because we really should be giving credit to this other person as well," that's when it's, like, a co-owned art space or something like that. So, but most people in the interview are pretty good about giving credit to everybody. Whoever's- So ... you know, worked on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, did you start it through Columbus Underground, or did you ask them to be a sponsor, and then that's just- So The Confluence Cast started, uh, started from Columbus Underground. It was all, it was, uh, um, basically me reaching out to Walker, who's one of the, the founders with his wife Anne, and saying, "Hey, I used to have this podcast, and, uh, I wanna do it again, but I sorta want some of the weight in terms of, uh, promotion. And I do promotion for my job. Right.

I do, you know, social media and stuff like that for my job. Like, I, you know, I'll set up my own website. I'll host it all myself. Um, the benefit for you guys is you have the, you will have the ability to sell into it Um, and it wasn't a money-making thing really, but it w- basically it was my pitch to get somebody else to help with promotion and, and growing listenership. So... Has that worked out well, then, since you- It's worked out okay ... did the inception?

Yeah. I mean, uh, it's, it's not making... I'll call, I'll call it a net zero. Uh, you know, there's probably one or two sponsored episodes a month. Yeah. I try to do it weekly. Um, I've really gotten great feedback from them. That's turned out to be a much bigger, uh, virtue than, uh, of that partnership than I thought, in terms of them reaching out and saying, "Hey, we've got, um, we've got our, our develop- our, our, uh, metro reporter, uh, speaking to somebo- to a developer, and could you record that and then you can use it on your podcast? They're gonna write a separate article," and so it's a joint piece. And those, those collaborative works have actually tended to be the most listened to episodes. Um, so yeah, it's, it's turned out well. Uh, and having a line to folks in, you know, more esta- you know, beyond The Dispatch, beyond The Alive, uh, and TV and radio- Yeah

... having, having a line to established media to be able to sort of, like, bounce ideas off of is, is great. Um, so you say you try to release once a week, or? Try to. Um, I've really fallen off. Uh, try to. Certainly, you know, there are certain sponsorship obligations that I have to fulfill- Right

... so I'm willing to say that I have to get one out a month. Um, but, uh, haven't... In the beginning, did a really good job of sort of maintaining, like, oh, I record on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesday, Wednesdays, release on Thursdays. That's pretty good. Uh, and I'll, I'll go ahead and put it out there right now that that's a goal for, to get, to just to get back to that. Right.

Um, when it started... So when I started podcasting, it was actually called 61 Forecast. Okay. Uh, and that was me, uh, a woman who's well-known for her, uh, vlogging- Oh

... uh, Amy Schmittauer, then a fella who does his own podcast, Eric. Uh, it's called The One You Feed. It's one of the best listened to, like- Oh, yeah ... self-help- Yeah

... um, podcasts in the country, and he's also based in Columbus. Um, and I feel like we did pretty good. It was, uh, getting everybody to g- like, we tried to do it every week, and we did it every week- Yeah ... 'cause we all sort of held each other accountable, and that's- Right

... anybody who's thinking about this stuff, like, you need something to hold you accountable, 'cause otherwise it's like, "Oh, I should do laundry, but I don't have to do laundry." And then you, you know, end up wearing the same pair of jeans three days in a row, which there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Jeans are fine.

Yeah, jeans are fine. But- I get... Yeah ... you should- Yeah

... do something other than that. Right. Uh, but with that one, it was almost exactly the same format, uh, interview-based, almost exclusively Columbus-based. Uh, and each of the three of us would sort of divvy up, like, um, who's taken what. Some episodes would have two interviews in them. Um, and we would get together, I think, towards the... When we sort of found our rhythm, we were just getting together every couple of weeks and, like, recording intros and outros- Oh, okay. Nice

... sometimes referred to as bumpers- Yeah ... uh, uh, for all the episodes at the same time. That's what taught me how to edit audio. Eric, Eric was already doing it. Amy and I were not. Um, from there, actually, uh, um, Andrew Levitt, uh, who's better known as Nino West- Oh, okay

... uh, reached out and said, "I wanna do a podcast too." And I was like, "Ooh, I could grow a network." Yeah. Uh, and started basically reco- ba- essentially was the engineer for, uh, uh, Andrew, uh, and his co-host, and they, uh, recorded with me a couple of times. I then taught them how to record themselves. I still host their- Oh, okay. Cool

... well, in terms of, like, data. Right. It's my server that those, uh, sit on. Um, and yeah. So I guess I'm the producer of that- Yeah

... still. I think, yeah. And then you and I sit... I'm just sort of going through, like, here's- Yeah

... all the podcast stuff. Yeah. Uh, you and I are... We've never called ourse- we've called ourselves the Pod Squad. Yeah.

Uh, but, uh- That's our nerdy internal name ... we, we are essentially on the board for- Yeah

... the Columbus Podcast Festival, which will be entering its third year next year. Yep. Uh, mark your calendars- Yeah

... for April 11th- 11th ... 12th, 13th, and 14th. That's right.

Uh- No plugs ... when does this come, come out? Uh, the 14th of September?

Uh- Are we allowed to talk about it then? You want me to bleep it? Yeah. I mean... No, we can totally talk about it. Okay.

We know the dates. I don't think we can say the venue yet, 'cause I don't have a signed piece of paper. Nice. But it's, uh, sorry, Garden Theatre. It's a different venue.

It's a different venue. The Garden Theatre was a fantastic venue for us- Yeah ... and I think we've sort of grown out of it, um, in term... Basically, we're hoping to grow out of it, right? Right. Yeah.

And it's a, the new venue we found is a super safe place to do that, we've found. Yeah. So that's exciting. Nice.

So... What's your, like, when it comes to f- like, finding guests for the show, what's your criteria to, like, you're Confluence Cast worthy, or, like, what's your- I keep, uh, this is sort of a how do you work thing. So I keep a to-do list on my phone that's, like, synced with my computer, and there's a running list. Uh, uh- ... it's a project in my, um, in my to-do list app that is Confluence Cast guests. Okay.

So I'll try and book up a whole bunch at the same time, and, you know, try to not overload myself so that I'm doing, like, roughly one or two a week. Yeah. And so then I have, like, I probably have- Maybe four in the can right now. Um, but it's a lot of... I'd- Some of it's aspirational. I've never had anybody tell me no. Okay. That's good.

I've had somebody not respond. That happens. But it wasn't like... But it was a city person. Like, it was somebody who was the head of a department. Oh.

Uh, that person isn't there anymore. I think the department is still there. But not really. Like- They had their moment. Yeah. Well, it was the... I mean, I don't mind saying this. It was, the city of Columbus used to have a, a, a head, a... What are the heads of departments called? Uh, the city of Columbus had a head of the, basically the business development. Okay.

And they had a, a small business concierge. And so, uh, I reached out to the person who became the new one, which that person, it really just seemed like they were trying to fulfill, uh, what the previous person had done such a great job at. Oh, okay. So that's my shout-out to Ryan Schick for- Yeah.

... filling that, filling that role really well the first time. Um, but yeah, it's been, um, great. Met super interesting people. Um, yeah, and a lot of it's aspirational in terms of, oh, I wanna talk to that person, or, oh, it's super interesting to hear how this person works. Um, and yeah, for... And some of it's selfish, actually. Some of it's, uh, I sit on a Columbus, uh, commission that used to be associated with the city called the Create Columbus Commission, and it's a young professionals commission. And we're trying to establish our non-profit status, as the Columbus Podcast Festival- Right ... needs to soon. Um, and so talking to, like, non-profit leaders and basically, like, "How did you do that?" You know, reaching out to the Women's Fund or other grant-making organizations that I, basically, I need help from. Right.

Uh, and it's a nice little backdoor. Yeah. Um, so yeah. But it's everybody from, like, you know, a, a, a, a dairy farmer, uh, the guy who runs Snowville Creamery- Oh, nice

... to- I can't drink that chocolate milk, but it's great. I'm lactose intolerant. Okay. So you can't drink any chocolate milk? No.

Got it. But that's the one I wanna drink the most. Hey, I've heard it's delicious. It's very good.

Uh, to, hey, wouldn't it be great to get almost, like, a postmortem from Mike Coleman? Oh, yeah. Like, those are the things sitting- Right

... on my, on my queue. To do. Okay. Uh, but I wanna make sure that I've got my schedule down pretty good, because asking a person like that- Yeah

... and not releasing it two weeks later, uh, I would not feel good about that. Yeah. So. Uh, do you find yourself having to explain what a podcast is to a lot of these people, or are they, are they in the know?

The guests? Yeah. Sometimes the guests. I don't feel like I... So, 'cause sometimes it's, like, a bureaucrat or something like that. Um, but for the most part, no. Okay.

Um, I have, just like I'm sure you have, like, a form letter that you send to people. Yep. Uh, I don't actually... I've heard of a lot of podcasters sort of prepping their people and being like... I'll tell them, like, "This is roughly what I wanna talk about," but I don't, I don't give them the questions ahead of time. Right.

Um, and it's not 'cause I'm trying to surprise anybody. I just would much prefer- Authentic answers? Uh, more of a conversation rather than... Like, right now, I'm talking a whole lot- Yeah

... more than, uh, I think maybe some of your other guests do, without, like, questions in between. You'd be surprised. Okay. Fair. Uh, I just want it to be much more a conversation. Right.

Uh, yeah. That's the goal. Less interview feel, more, more relaxed environment. Like- Yeah. That's ideal. That's an ideal conversation to listen to. Like, if you come off, like, too radio, I guess.

Right. Well, like, like, literally throwing softballs up in the air and just- Right ... letting them hit it out of the park. Yeah.

Like, the other thing is I try... While it's Columbus-based, like, I get pitched a lot on events. Mm-hmm. And part of it, part of this goes back to, well, I'm not gonna commit that this is gonna be out- Right

... at, at any certain point- Yeah ... so this is a bad idea. Yeah.

Um, but, and having a background in public relations, I'm like, "I'm not interested in promoting your event or your exhibition. I'm much more interested in learning about this." And the, the, the timely pieces that I've done, I've been super conscious of, um, making sure that it has at least some value two months later. Yeah. The, I think the best example is that, of that is the city was trying to amend its, uh, charter, and it ba- which is basically the city's constitution. Okay.

It's the legal, you know, it's the, the, the legal thing that, uh, that, that governs the city. And they were thinking about changing it, and I... So I sat down with the chair of the past charter review commission to talk about, like, "Hey, what's the charter? Hey, why is it that, like, this?" Yeah. "Hey, what makes Columbus different from other cities?" I super encourage anybody to listen to it who actually lives in Columbus, 'cause it's super interesting to find out, like, we're super... There, there's this huge focus on, um, like how many council seats there are. This is why they were amending the charter. Yeah.

How many council seats, whether they're, um, uh, geographically based, like a ward-type system. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at its heart, in Columbus, we're, the mayor is much stronger than council. Like, the mayor controls a budget, and, like, and controls almost all the departments. Yeah.

And council is- ... does a lot, but we, it's a very strong mayor. Anyway, what, what's interesting is the day before I recorded that interview, they actually tabled, uh, the, their charter review commission at the time, and I was like, "Should I still do it?" And I was like, "Oh, fuck yeah- Yeah ... I should still do it." Like, this is, uh, important, and hopefully if anybody Googles it, it comes up. Right.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and again, super interesting to me, so. How do you like, uh, with something like that, what would you... Do you worry about, like, titling the episode or anything like that? Or y- is it just, like, the guest name, what they do, or is it just-

For me, it's almost alwa- and I don't know if this, still the standard, but I'm sort of locked into it at this point, is, is, you know, the title is the number of the episode- Yeah ... colon whatever the subject matter is. Um, you know, I listen to some, I listen to some podcasts and it's, you know, sometimes it's just ridiculous- Yeah

... what people are saying. Like, uh, you know, just inventing some paradox that in the middle of a two-and-a-half hour- ... episode, somebody, like, says, "Is that, like, so-and-so paradox?" And it's like, "Yep," and they move right along. Yeah. And it's not what the episode's about at all. Uh, but sometimes people just like hearing, you know, two guys talk to each other. Right.

But yeah, it's almost always, you know, with the charter, it was Columbus City Charter. There you go. And the- Yeah

... title image was city hall. Uh, or if it's an artist- Oh, you do, you do a title image for everything, I guess. I didn't even think about, like... I, well, 'cause it's goes up in a blog is the theme. Yeah. Oh, okay.

So that they can- Got ya ... you know, so that they can see the show notes and stuff. Um, you know, name of an artist, subject matter, if it's something, something like Independence Day or an arts gallery- Right

... or, uh, a developer, it'll be the name of the developer, not the name of the person from the developer- Yeah, yeah ... that you're talking to. Yeah.

That's not... Yeah, I don't, uh, what do other people do? I think it depends on the podcast. What are you gonna name this? Uh, Confluence Cast.

Okay. Presented by Columbus Underground. The new- No, probably just Columbus-

Yeah. Uh... Probably just Confluence Cast. So. What's funny is when I bought the URL, I don't, I've never told anyone this. All right.

So when- Exclusives ... so when I bought the URL, I just typed in theconfluencecast.com, spun up the WordPress site- Yeah

... got all the plugins in there that I needed, and launched the episodes. I never searched for confluencecast.com. Uh, so I'm now properly The Confluence Cast. Okay. Like the Ohio State University. But if you go to confluencecast.com, it also redirects. It'll redirect.

It, it just reroutes back to. I'm just paying an extra $14 a year. So. You can sit on it and somebody else might wanna come along and- Yeah, by the way- ... start their own

... we are on Patreon if you'd like to- Oh, nice ... uh... Are you on Patreon? I am not. I've, I've thought about it, but that seems like a lot more upkeep to, to do than-

So- ... already doing four other podcasts ... I think there's some expectation that... A- and you should, I guess. It's set up to be like, oh, you get exclusives and stuff- Right

... like that. I'm not en- encouraging anyone to stop patronizing me on Patreon. Right. But I don't really... I mean, I post it there- Right

... so that those folks see it. Um, and I'll, I actually do release episodes, don't promote them, and wait for Columbus Underground to put them up on their site- Oh, okay ... before I start promoting it. Yeah.

And that's just, they've never even asked me to do it. I just wanna be kind to them. Right. So, uh, so those folks, I guess, see it first, but I think I've gotten, like, $14 or something- Nice

... over the course of last year. Nice. Pays for the, pays for the other URL. Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. I did, I did just pay for my shitty URL. Zero netting or whatever. You net zero.

Net zero. No loss. Uh, we, I just talked about this on another podcast I did, where it kinda changes the relationship, I think the moment you start kinda... I mean, if you're not, like, mentioning it all the time or, like, begging people for it, but it's just one of those things where it's just like, "Please give us money- Well- ... and we'll try to, like, do special stuff for you." Like, uh, I, I, I just...

Yeah. I feel like that's... Uh, I mention it at every podcast. Okay. Um, I don't... Do I link to it? I think I still link to it in, like, the footer of the Columbus Underground article. That may get stripped out when it gets edited. Uh, but I don't, like, talk about special benefits 'cause it's not, like... I, I think anybody that gets into this because they're like, "Well, I'm funny," or, "I, people wanna listen to me," or, "People don't wanna listen to me in a bar, but they may wanna listen to me, uh, and I could make some money off of it," is doing it for absolutely the wrong reason. Right.

I mean, my... I got into this so, just short biography of how we got here. Yes. Uh, I grew up doing theater. Um, I was fine. Uh, I was- Reviews were okay.

Were fi- I mean, I, you know, I had some big roles for being a 17-year-old. Um, I'm on IMDb. Yeah, nice. Uh, that's, like, a cool, like, thing you could... If I were single, I would put that on a dating app- ... I guess. When I was single, I didn't put it on a dating app. I discovered I wasn't, like, I'm not gonna be... You could, you can fuck around when you're 17. Right.

But then, like, you go to college, and I was m- uh, I was like, "Okay, I gotta figure out how to go to c- or where I'm gonna go to college and what I'm gonna do," and I was like, "I wanna do theater, but I know I'm not that good." And, like, I think I'm good-looking, but I'm not, like, that good-looking that I can just get away with being mediocre. Uh, so I, I started, uh, I had always been doing, like, stage management and directing theater- Yeah ... stuff like that, so I majored in theater design at Otterbein. They have a fantastic program for it. Um, it was a BFA program. Dropped out, uh, and ... was Like a, a left turn I didn't see coming right there

Well, it was just like the thing, if a serious person says, "Why didn't you finish that degree?" I say, "Uh, I didn't wanna look for a job every six months of my life." Right. 'Cause that's what that kind of thing is, especially when you're... I mean, you're a technical person. Yeah.

Like, when you're... Well, when you're a technical person working in theater, and it's not like auditions. Like, it is truly exactly who you know. Yeah. So you can get picked up for a tour, so you can get picked up for, uh, a residency, and at that point, I wasn't, um, you know, thinking about family really, but I didn't think that I wanted that to be my life. Yeah.

To like, you know, go and do, uh, regional theater, and then go and... I was already... My mom lived in New York, and so I was in New York a lot, but I just didn't want... I wanted a home base, and frankly, I wa- I knew at that point that I still wanted it to be Columbus. So anyway, uh, I was doing, uh, some marketing and some sort of event hosting, and then I, and I was working at the door at a bar, and we were looking for something to do on Tuesday nights. And the, one or the other door guys said, "We should do trivia." And it didn't exist in Columbus at all. Hmm. Uh, this is, uh, documented in- ... uh, uh, one of my two covers of the Columbus Alive. Uh- Oh, look at you

... I, I've got everybody get... Well- So the first one was by virtue of working there. Oh, okay. I was the, I was the marketing director. Uh, and literally the editor, uh, came out to me and said, "All right, Tim, everybody gets one." And my first cover was me standing in a suit outside of a dumpster- ... uh, dressed up as a bas- dressed up as a waiter, holding a tray of garbage. Uh, and it was an, uh, the feature story was about dumpster diving. Oh.

Like, it had nothing to do with me. Um, and then the second cover I was on for trivia. Okay. Uh, I think the shitty headline was Trivia Explosion, uh, because trivia was happening everywhere. But the, all this is to say that I am credited in that article by another- Nice

... trivia host as being the OG of Columbus trivia. For those that don't know, OG means original gangster. Oh. Gee. Uh, so, and so I did that for, like eight years, uh, hosted trivia, and people were like... Like, to the extent where I had a semi-professional job. Yeah.

And people were like, "Why are you doing this?" And I was like, "Honestly, it gets, like, the acting- Yeah ... and, like, stage performance bug out." Yeah.

Uh, along with that, I started a, a, a staged event called, with a, with a group of guys, called Motive, where I interviewed folks, and so that got that bug out. And then Motive sort of, um, it did what, exactly what it was supposed to do, and it, it went away. And, uh, started doing that podcast, and I was like, "This gets the bug out." Yeah. "This is enough." So I do wanna take this opportunity to say on, uh, the, on the recording, I haven't been interviewed, uh- ... before other than, like, public relations- Right

... trivia stuff. Do you g- you still do the trivia then, or is that- So I still, uh, I still own a company that hosts trivia nights. Okay.

I don't do it on a regular basis. I stopped doing it Father's Day three years ago. Uh, very specifically 'cause I was about to have, uh, my daughter, Piper. Okay. Yeah. Uh, and it just wasn't... I was doing it, like, two and a half nights a week, and that just wasn't cool. Right.

Like, it was like I, you know, I wanted to be home with my daughter. Right. So, uh, and it's, while it's fun and the money's fine, it's not sort of worth it- Right

... to do it. So I have a couple of hosts that work for me. They're great. Bodega is now the longest running trivia night in Columbus, um, and I'm proud of that. Where is it at? Bodega? Yeah.

On Sunday nights. Oh, okay. Nice. Are you familiar with Bodega? I'm not, I'm not.

Oh. I'm not- It's in Short North ... Okay, yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna say, I'm not, like, the bar crawling guy unless they got, like, a sh- like, a band's gonna play there that I'm gonna go to. That's the whole thing. Bodega is Short Nor- it's like the northernmost of the old Short North. Oh, okay.

About a block and a half south of Scully's. Uh, first bar in Columbus to be non-smoking. Oh. So it was non-smoking before even the Columbus Smoking Ban. Wow.

So I'm that old. That make a lot of people mad at that point probably? Uh, no, because it opened that way. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It opened as, like, which- It's an alternative for the people that didn't wanna be around cigarette smoke too? Well, no, but it was wei- I mean, in Columbus at that time, it was like everyb- it was just assumed- Oh, okay

... um, that you could smoke. Hmm. And that was, uh, my how far we've come. Yeah.

Or, and the country. I mean, you, I- There's still spots. Yeah. There's still spo- Can you still smoke in Indy? Uh, I think there. Georgia, you definitely can.

I was down in Georgia a couple weeks ago, and it was cool. I, 'cause I'm a smoker. And I, I was like, "Oh, what?" It was like novel- Right ... but also even the, the shitty bars, because it's not the norm everywhere all around the country, even the shitty bars have, like, a casino HVAC system that's, like, just sucking all the smoke out immediately. You must've been in a nice bar then.

No, it was, it was- Oh, okay ... all in the wall. That, that's what I was surprised by. Oh, okay.

That it was, like, sucking it out. It wasn't like... I mean, when I worked the door, this was at the old Andy Man's Treehouse. Yeah. Uh, the owner didn't smoke, and he was also a bartender. He bartended, like, three nights a week. He would get sick every- Oh, really?

... quarter, and, like, and bad. Yeah. Like, like, like- God, is Quinn okay? Uh, and after the smoking ban and after, uh, he sold the bar, he was fine. Like, 'cause it, not only did he have to get away from the smoke, he had to get away from the remnants of it. Uh, and he hasn't really been that sick- Hm

... since, so smoking ban. Smoking ban. That's that chapter. Yep.

Do you put the, do you put it into chapters? I don't. Do you want me to especially for you? Like, do you want me to do like a- No, but like, do people do that? I don't think so.

'Cause it used to be when podcasts came out, there was like, you could, there was some software, I think Apple's, uh, GarageBand, um, let you put in- There were like markers or whatever where you could- There were markers- Yeah

... that you could also line up with images. Yeah. So that if you picked up like your iPod Touch, if- Oh, yeah

... you have like an image. It's still in there. You can still do that? Yeah. What do you use to edit your podcast?

Uh, I edit, I record in Reaper, uh, and edit the interview in Reaper, and then always just export that and normalize it in that, and then put it into GarageBand. And then like go from like a WAV format down to an MP3 or...? I export directly to MP3 from GarageBand. Um, like, uh, Dragcast, which is Andrew Levitt/Nina West podcast, he always sends me a WAV format, and I have to- Shrink it down

... well, it's probably why I'm still- Yeah ... paying Adobe money every month- ... so that I can have their... It's sweet. Their converter is great- Oh, okay

... from like WAV to MP3, so I don't have to like put it in GarageBand and worry that it's gonna add whatever I was doing the last time it had o- I had it open. Does that make sense? No. I mean, I usually drop WAV files into GarageBand, edit down, and then share it as a MP3. Or like when you go to share it to export, you can choose MP3 or... I literally, with GarageBand, it's like a... There's gotta be an analogy here, but every time I open it, it's literally just the same project. Delete the tracks from before, but it's got the levels that I like for my theme music. Yeah.

I just add another theme music over top of it- Right ... if my intro's longer. Um, and then I skim the whole thing to make sure there isn't like, if I interviewed a musici- musician, I'll drop in a song and I just make sure that stuff isn't in there. So- Huh

... that's how I do it. That's crazy. I mean, it's like, I think it's super similar to, 'cause I haven't talked to anybody that does it that way, but that's how I learned to do it. Right.

And so it's, I don't care. Right. Yeah. I mean, if it works for you. And it's not any, and it's not any better than... I mean, there's, some of the top-ranked podcasts out there- Right

... are, you know, recorded in people's bedrooms and- Right ... by the way, thank you for joining me in my home. Yeah, not a problem. Now that I don't have a co-host anymore, it's a lot easier for me to just throw stuff in my backpack and go somewhere.

Right. Well, you don't, you only have one person to coordinate with, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have a, like an at home studio too? Uh, no, that tote that I have at the podcast festival-

Uh-huh ... that's just what I carry around. So, like, I take that to my work- Okay ... if I'm recording in my conference room at work.

Okay. Or- Like at lunch or something? Yeah.

Okay. Uh, or I'll take it, um, to people's places. Like, if there's more than three people- Okay ... I generally just pull that out and then give, hand everybody a mic and then...

So you don't have a desk at home that has like a mic on a stand set up? Um- Your wife doesn't let you do that. I have a Blue Yeti upstairs.

Oof. I never use it. Yeah. I bought it, I bought it for a-

I have one downstairs. I g- like, because it's the stuff that you buy when you're like, when you're like starting. Yeah. And then you realize they're great microphones. Yeah.

They are re- super, you know- Right ... solid quality, but if you don't have an external thing, you can't hear yourself. Right.

And you wanna be able to hear, especially when you're recording like an intro. Yeah. You wanna be able- I wanna check my levels. I wanna know that I'm, everything sounds fine and-

Right. You don't just wanna look at a series of eight green lights or whatever it is. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, this is pretty much the mobile stuff. If I'm going to festivals or one-on-ones, stuff like that, then I just kinda bring this. Just some double A's in there? And that-

Yep. What is it? A Zoom- Four double A's. A Zoom H6. It's nice.

So. Nice carrying case, folks, too. Yeah. Comes with it. Ah.

Don't, don't gotta pay extra for it. Yeah. So. My Zoom didn't come... I use the handheld like, it's basically last resort.

Right. Like, I use it if, "Oh shit, I gotta get this episode out today." Oh, got it. I'll use it for an intro.

Okay, yeah. But I try to actually keep in my bag, like you know those banker's bags? Yeah. Like those bags that you normally people keep wads of cash in.

Right. I keep one in my bag, and it's just a little Zoom mobile- Okay ... uh, H-

Like the H1 or...? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And then a, um, short XLR and a shitty condenser mic-

Yeah ... just so that I can be ready to do it. I take my H4n that I have, I still have that, and I take that on the road with me. Okay.

So in case I'm, I do a lot of editing now when I'm traveling, 'cause it's like my only time to do it it seems like. Are you recording a lot, like over Skype or- Mm ... always in person?

Always in person generally. I did one over the phone interview. And it wasn't great, right? Um, it was fine. Okay.

But it could've been better. It, I realized after it how I could've improved it. Right. But yeah, it, it, it wasn't ideal. It's just hard to do when you, when you're talking to somebody or trying to do an interview and you can't see their face. Right.

It's very hard to like, you don't wanna step over them. Well, it's like a conference line too, right? Yeah, yeah. But thankfully you can fix a lot of that stuff in post.

Right. One podcast that like is, one, just super well produ- and y- it's made by The New York Times, so like- ... they've got, you know- They got that money ... they have some resources available to them, but they also do, now that they've sort of gotten into their swing of things, 'cause it's only like six months old or-

Yeah ... eight months old or something, they've gotten really good at sort of adding in- Like when they call people. Oh, okay. So like li- hear the phone ringing, you hear an assistant pick up or if they've got a, if they're calling a, a reporter, they'll be like calling a hotel and then asking for someone.

Yeah, yeah. And that, and like even to the point where the reporter will be like, "Hey, hold on. I'm gonna put on hands-free." And then they go to hands-free and they're like... Hey, remember this is an audio recording? That's not a good idea. Uh, and it's just really, um, people love seeing sort of the... It's one thing I wanna start doing more if I wasn't in such a rush- Right ... is sort of adding in, when people listen to my podcast, there are n- there's normally three minutes of audio, uh, before they ever start hearing it.

Yeah. Um, do you have like a, you don't set levels really 'cause this thing is so good that it's just sort of- Um, I mean, I'm, I'm making sure. And you could set up levels in post too a little bit.

Yeah, a little bit, but like this has got individual knobs that I can tune the gain to. Okay. If you're like, like, uh, Jake, the old co-host was like a lot louder and boomier in his normal voice. Okay.

So I had to like set his a little bit lower, but that, the mixer that I use as well, the Behringer mixer also has different- Gotcha ... individual levels that I play around with. Some people are a little like light talkers. Right.

So you gotta make sure that- You turn them way up. Yeah. Or that they're swallowing their microphone.

Right. Right. Uh, so yeah, like literally I have, uh, well there's, I, I think I'm at s- roughly 60 episodes now. There's 60 people that I've said, uh, "Hey, just so I can set levels, can you tell me what you had for breakfast this morning?" Right. And someday, maybe once I get to 100 episodes, I will literally just release what everyone had for breakfast that morning.

You still record it and group them together and... Uh, yeah. Well, I'll just, I mean, I have all the raw files. Okay. Yeah. So I'll just, you know-

Go back through and edit them all ... and it's super easy to edit, right? Oh. 'Cause it's the beginning of all of it.

Yeah. That's actually not a bad idea. Yeah. Fun fact, you're my 100th episode for It Sounds The Best. Hey. Well, that's an honor.

Yeah. Thanks. My, my, f- yeah. Well, congratulations.

Thank you. That's a big deal. Yeah, I know. Uh- ... I did it with another I d- well, I did it with another podcast a few weeks ago with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. Okay.

And, uh, I deleted episodes 99 and 100, so it was ... Like accidentally? Yeah. It was, I was trying to- How do you still do that? You're a veteran.

I was, uh, sick, so it was like a perfect storm of me happening to record. I had just been to a concert the night before, and I was going to a work pic- there was like a wh- a whole storm- Of things happening ... of just things happening And you were sick.

And I was worried that I didn't have enough space, 'cause I still had all the Podcast Festival files on there. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, we normally like bulk record for like four hours. Oh, you do?

Yeah, so it was one of those things like I don't wanna run out in the middle. I have two 64 gigabyte SD cards. What do you t- and I apologize for not knowing. Sorry. What do you talk about on your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles podcast?

Um, we review episodes of the old cartoon show. The animated one- So like- ... with Hot April O'Neil

... yeah, we do like a rap- Hot April O'Neil. Yeah. You talk about her? Uh, the very first episode my brother-in-law was like, "I didn't realize like how hot she was." It was like- Oh, 'cause you didn't think about it-

You didn't even know about it then ... you haven't seen it- Yeah ... since then.

Right. Uh... Uh, but those are only like half an hour long, but this was like the, um, the rule of- So do you live talk through it?

No, no, no, no. We do like a post thing. I can't- So you talk about the plot. Yeah. You talk about-

How dumb it was and how much I've ruined my childhood. See, I don't listen, I don't listen. So I, you know, I have my, my blog feed or whatever. Yeah. And there's one on there that's, uh, going through every episode of The Simpsons.

Yeah. And I'm like, "That's cool." See- I've never listened to it, I just, I'm like-

At all ... "Is that interesting?" There's a couple that do that now. There's an Australian one called- Well, and there's one that's still going on, I think, or maybe it's recently finished-

Yeah ... for The West Wing. Oh, wow. Which I'm probably on my 12th-

Wow ... like rewa- like I'll just watch it at lunch. Right. I'm like, "Oh, Josh." Like I, uh... Yeah, it's like that and Back to the Future are like the things that I nerd out about.

I watch Back to the Future trilogy at least once a year. Yeah. So. So-

Yeah ... oh, I haven't been able to say this anywhere. Uh, I convince... So my daughter is pretty, like I'll play her a new song, and she will not wanna hear it. Right. Even if it's a song she'll like, I'll have to like listen to her scream.

Just to get through. Uh, which is a function of, frankly, poor parenting on my part- ... leading up to that point of not l- of not sort of setting an expectation, "Hey, you can't listen to whatever you want." Um, but based on like the, the Back to the Future toys that I have around the house, then she'll be like, "What's that?" 'Cause of course she can't play with them. They're collectors items. Not allowed to touch that stuff. Uh, those are Daddy's toys. Uh, which brings up a whole nother weird set of things you have to tell your children. Uh, she was, got super excited about the idea of Back to the Future, and then watched it and loved it.

Yeah. To the point now where, yeah, she still asks for her princess show, which is not that bad, uh, in terms of like morals it teaches. Like Frozen, don't even get me started about- ... how that's a convoluted... If you don't watch all of the way to the end- Right ... it's like love from a man is the only thing that's ever gonna make you happy.

That's only gonna tame the wild heart of a woman. Well, and somehow if you have a cold heart, you're more sexualized. Yeah. That's, ugh.

Yeah. Anyway, uh, she watched Back to the Future and loved it to the point where now she, I'm like, she's like, "I wanna watch Back to the U-ture." And I'm like, "Okay, which one?" Nice. And she's like, "Not the one with the cowboys." Or like sometimes she wants the-

Underrated, but I get it. I think it's good. I do too. It wraps it up really well.

We heard enough from Marty in the first two. Let's get Doc's perspective on some stuff. Right. Yeah, Doc's allowed to love too. Right. I'm, I imagine I'll love that film much more in my, in my waning years.

Yeah. Uh, shot in the back over the matter of $80. Uh, wait, I'm sorry. What were we talking about? I have a Lego DeLorean on my toolbox. You do?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have the Lego DeLorean too. Do you think it's weird that they issued, uh, and maybe all Lego things do, uh, issued it in French as like- I think, yeah, I think- The box is English and French.

Yeah. And I just never bought anything that was... I don't buy a lot of Legos. Uh- I buy a lot of Back to the Future stuff.

I think it, yeah. I think it, it bounces back and forth between Spanish and French. Okay. I think they're going for, like, it's probably something to do with, like- I feel like I bought the Canadian-

Oh, like the, yeah, the Quebec version ... the Quebec version. Yeah. Where it's legally-

Could've- ... required that- Correct ... everything is in English.

Have French just right underneath it. Yeah. Um, yeah, we were talking about podcasting and stuff, I think. That's, that's about where we were.

Uh, tell me about your intro music. Uh- 'Cause I love it. Thank you. Uh, I have a friend who is, uh, he had com- uh, he had, when I was starting the podcast, had, uh, composed some music for a video game.

Okay, sweet. Um- What game? I'm sorry, that's actually not true.

Oh, okay. He created a video game for music that a friend of his had done. Hmm. Um, and I was super excited about just the idea of that. Um, I've, you know, background in theater, but I also used to work at the Wexner Center, and I actually really like conceptual stuff like that that can only be ex- at, at a time feels very personal because it's not like you and 20 people looking at a big piece of art.

Right. Or you and 200 people watching a play where it's, like, a super visceral personal experience. Um, so we were talking about that, and he was talking about how he really wanted to get into that sort of thing. And, uh, I basically was like, "I'll give you a nominal amount of money for- ... you to write this theme music, but here's what I want it to be." You were ready for the inspiration? Mm-hmm. Please cut in my theme music at some point in here.

I was gonna use it at the bumpers, but I'll also do it here if you'd like. Okay. So just, like, just, just the beginning- Okay

... right now. So the inspi- Literally all the, all I gave him for that was, "Hey, do you know the Night Court theme song?" "Cool. Can you make it a little more fun?" "And I really like the slap bass in the second iteration of Law & Order." And that's what it was. So it's got that bow-now. It's pretty good. That's, that's where I was like, "Give me Night Court and Law & Order," but, like, not the modern Law & Order- Right

... but, like, the slap bass one. It's like if, if, um, the first half of Law & Order was the law por- the law part, and then the back half, the order part, just turned into a Night Court episode. Yes. So it went-

'Cause it starts kind of like, oh- Yeah ... this is impactful. And then it's like Like, it sounds like a children's intro. It, yeah, that would... I would love to see that skit on, like, Saturday Night Live, where it's just like the first half is, like, really hardcore detectives, really gruesome murder, a sex crime or something like that.

And then at the half hour mark- ... it's just a comedic courtroom. It's Bull and- Right ... the rest of the gang, like.

Bull, Bull walks in, calls order. And then, but you still get the twist at the 45-minute mark- Right. ... where it's like they've been making, it's like jokes, jokes, jokes, and then all of a sudden it's like the mother was raping the daughter. Oh, shit. Yeah. How's Harry gonna-

How's Harry gonna- ... get out of this one? ... answer with that? Make a sexist joke. Yeah. That's exactly how it would play out. Gotta see this. That's, that's wonderful.

Oh, I love a good, like, conceptual mashup. Right. Like, what if Back to the Future were a horror film? Or, 'cause I'm cut- 'cause I'm that much of a fan that, like, people see something and then share it- Right

... like on my Facebook wall or something, and they're like, "You gotta see it." So I see all the iterations of all that stuff. Have you thought about, in Back to the Future III, that at one point there are four DeLoreans in the same time zone? So there are, same point in time. Yeah.

Uh, there are various graphical... So I have, we're actually sitting by one of them. This is a local artist- Okay, nice ... that did this. This is, uh, um, uh, it's called We're Going Back. I think Cody Smith is his name. Nice.

Uh, so this is one of three prints that were made of this piece. So this was featured, th- then this was mass-produced and sold by, like, BTTF.com- Yeah ... or something. Um, so I w- don't break into my home. Uh, so I have various, like, pieces. Yeah.

There's actually a set piece from Back to the Future II upstairs. Mm-hmm. It's from the '80s diner. Okay.

Uh, you can't see it in the movie, though. But you can tell it's the same thing- Right ... because of the, the color scheme or whatever. My friend was a tour guide at Universal. Nice.

Um, so I'm that much of a fan. Uh, I have seen graphical representations of the timeline. I have not studied them very much. I'm gonna admit some, like, I can talk to you about, like, why Crispin Glover was fired and, like, uh- Yeah, yeah. That's a crazy story as well. Well, it's not... It, the lawsuit is what's- Right

... interesting. Yeah. Uh, it's not that crazy. He's fucking crazy. Well, yeah, the, the fact that he wanted-

I respect him very much. Like, that Rats movie is fucking great. Uh... The fact that he wanted as much Marty as like, or as much money as Marty. Right. Like, 'cause he's like, "I'm also one of the stars." Like, not really, bud.

Not really. You're kind of a- Well, what's interesting is they, so they repla- after the, so for... And I will get to your answer here- Yeah.

... in a second. But they replaced, uh, uh, uh, uh, Jennifer and- Crispin Glover's- Yeah ... character, the dad in the second film. They made no qual- They just reshot the end of the first movie- Mm-hmm

... for the beginning of the second one. Didn't make any qualms about the fact that it was Elizabeth Shue now. Right. Uh, but I believe that Crispin Glover had the... Like, they just made up some no-name actor, hung him upside down. Dressed him to look like Crispin Glover.

Dressed him to look exactly- Yeah ... like Crispin Glover, and probably with some amount of prosthetics. Yeah.

Like, yeah. That's- Yeah, I never thought about that ... I don't- Why wouldn't they have done the-

I don't know what his contract said, but there's some amount of intellectual property there- Yeah ... that people are like, "Oh, it's great. Crispin Glover's still in it." Well, it's when they li- like, when they license, like, video game movies or movies from video game-

Right ... or you know what I mean? Like, they have to also then contract the star of that movie to be in the game. You know what I mean? Like that face. Like, the Mission Impossible video games do not have Tom Cruise's likeness in them because it's just one of those things, like, the likeness rights, I think is actually what it's called. So, oh, what you're saying is they could... Without paying Tom Cruise- Right

... they couldn't put a Tom Cruise face, even if it was, like, somebody impersonating- Right ... his voice or something similar. They can get, they can get the IP for the movie or for the game rights from the movie, but they also have to then get the likeness rights of the actors that they wanna have in it.

Yeah, so- So yeah, he- Given that- Yeah

... Crispin Glover had a case. Right. Absolutely. Oh, very much so. I just thought he was nuts for, like-

So when i- I'm going to admit this ... mm-hmm ... when are there four DeLoreans? This is in two? This is in-

That's gotta be in two ... the end of two to three, like in between. And- Okay ... where Marty goes back to 1955 to then fix the alternate timeline.

So I've been watching... Piper, my daughter- Mm-hmm ... has been watching... I just realized that's the first time I've said her name in a, in a year. Uh, don't be creepy. Um- I think it was the second time-

Oh, okay ... you talked about her. The... So this is when Marty basically says to Doc, "What about Jennifer? What about Doc?" Yeah.

And Doc says, "Well, if we succeed, then they'll just be automatically transported"- They'll end up in the right timeline ... which by the way, that's bullshit. Very much bullshit.

Uh- They're lost in that timeline. Uh, they will, they will then be infinitely stuck in that timeline 'cause it's the, the worst timeline. Right.

Like we're in now. Um- It just took us- So- ... 31 years

... and then, and then Doc basically says something to the effect of, "We have to succeed." Right. And so then they go back. So they go back to 1955. There are not four DeLoreans because- ... 2000... Shit. There are.

Hold on. S- Can I walk you through it? Walk me through it. So you have original Back to the Future DeLorean.

Oh wait, they are, because Marty's in the backseat of the fucking Cadillac- Yep ... or whatever it is when 2015 Biff- Yeah

... is there talking- Yeah ... to 1955 Biff. S- see-

So that's three DeLoreans right there because he's there from the first movie. Right. So where's the fourth DeLorean? Hidden, buried in the, in the mines.

Ah. Buried at the drive-in movie theater. Yeah. Buried in the mines. Four DeLoreans. No shit. Yep. There's enough DeLoreans. I think it... I know they would've, like, like ruptured the timeline if he would've taken off of this DeLorean to, you know what I mean, rob Peter to pay Paul with this DeLorean of all the DeLoreans that were in that. You know what I mean? If you were like, "Okay, we need a fuel line-"

Meaning back, so if there was a fourth one... 'Cause there's been rumors about a fourth one. I don't know. I don't know. I doubt that's gonna happen. But there were also, like, rumors that there was gonna be a staged musical. Oh, right.

Uh, this was in like 2013 maybe that- Yeah ... that was going on. They, uh... That would be a great, like, you do, like, a switcheroo and, like, you fuck up the space-time continuum- Yeah

... and you don't get it back in time. Right. Because don't they actually steal? Because old Biff, 2015 Biff steals the DeLorean- Yep

... in two, goes back to '55, returns it to good, quote-unquote, "good" 2015- Right ... while Doc and Marty are still there. Right. So it doesn't make sense that he was able to even-

Oh, but he skipped it. Yeah. He skipped it. So it d- But what doesn't make sense is that he was a... If his plan worked- He would have ended up-

... wow, this movie is bullshit ... yeah, it's full of flaws. Sorry. I just, I've always just... Well, he also gets out of that when he returns it. He also gets out of it and dies.

Right, and the head- Yeah, 'cause he, like, disappears- Oh, and yeah, they never even really addressed that ... 'cause he's not even supposed to be in that, he's not supposed to be in that timeline.

He just dies? He di... You see him, like, struggle as he gets out of the car, and it's like- Oh, and that's why. Yeah.

I, I, I never pa- I fucking hate Biff- Yeah ... and so I don't- Yeah, you don't worry about it

... pay attention to that aspect- Right ... of it. But he didn't, like... It's not hard to make someone disappear. No.

But also, that's very similar to the first film when he's trying to play- Right, and he starts to disappear ... w- uh, Marvin Berry, uh, and he starts, like, not being able to play the guitar, but then he holds it... It would've been a cool thing, and it's probably on the cutting room floor. It would've been a cool thing to see, like, Biff hold up his hand, and it starts, like, disappearing- Right

... in that shitty movie effect way. Right. Um, do you know they recorded, like, a, like, a, almost like... It, it's not like a blooper reel, but, like, bad shit that, like... At one point they go back to the Jurassic era. Oh, really?

Yeah. They recor- they filmed it, but they didn't wanna pay to finish it. Was this when, uh, Eric what's-his-balls was in the- Yeah. Oh, okay.

Eric, so Eric Stoltz was the- Yeah ... original Mar- excuse me. He wasn't the original Marty. He was the original one hired. They always wanted Michael J. Fox. Yeah.

Uh, they just couldn't work it out with family ties. Yeah. I love where this has gone- Yeah

... at this point. Um, but- Conversation ... no, it was, I think it was, 'cause they filmed two and three at the same time. Yeah.

Um, and 'cause they wanted to make sure one was successful. And I think it's in the very back of, like, the film book, so I got to assume it was filmed concurrently with three and two basically. So... Interesting. Yeah. I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.

What other podcast questions do you have? Uh, do you have any other ideas for other podcasts? Well, I guess I could do a Back to the Future one. Um- I'll produce it. Do you wanna do one together?

Yeah, but how... I mean, what are you... Is that just a miniseries, though? I mean, fuck, I could... I mean, there are... I've... You know those stupid cube th- bookcases from IKEA? Yeah. I have an entire square of, like, Back to the Future stuff. Back to the Future stuff.

Like, there's the cartoon series, there's the, the comic book, actually. Yeah. It's a graphic novel that came out with alternate stories that Bob Gale, who's- The ori- yeah

... one of the original writers, is really good, which actually really addresses a lot of modern-day, uh, ideas- Hmm ... of, like, why is an old man hanging out with a teenage boy? Uh, important question. Right.

Totally valid question. Yeah. Yeah, I'd do that, but how do I do it, like, I do, like, a four-hour... 'Cause you... That's an interesting question, 'cause I always mine are... When you listen to it, you're listening to- Right

... essentially real time, one interview. I'm not, like, blocking or anything. There's, um, there's... I mean, there's different ways you could go about it. You could bring on guests that you know, have an... You could talk about, like, time travel for the most part with every guest, get their thoughts on it. You could do... There's a st- I love varying theories of time travel too. There's... I, um, I'm obsessed with it.

So d- would you do, like, a season then? Yeah. Yeah, you could do it seasonal. Or, you know, season- How do you feel about that, people that, like, issue a whole bunch of episodes all at the same time- No

... like Netflix does? Um, I mean, people wanna binge anyways. If they like the content, they wanna have more than, like, one episode at a time to do it. I've never done any podcast that's different from this format. Right.

So, fuck yeah, let's do it. Okay. Yeah. 'Cause it... Well, there's others, uh, like Star Wars podca- I mean, Jesus, there's, like, so many Star Wars podcasts out there.

Well, duh. But, like- I mean, let's talk about the- But there's one that-

... demographic of people that- That's true, that like s- ... pays a couple hundred dollars for audio equipment, looking at your really nice Zoom right now. Uh, and, you know, wants to sit around. Maybe there's a beer, maybe there's not. Right. It could be a once a month thing, and then... I, I like root beer. Uh, it could be a once a month thing, and then... But there's... You could do it, um, there's a Star Wars podcast called Star Wars Minute, where they watch a minute of the film-

Oh ... and dissect it. Is that worth it? No. But I'm just saying we have options.

So it's like the most listened to episode, like, the first appearance of Jar Jar Binks- Right ... or that, what's the little furry thing that stayed- Salas?

Is that the thing that- Oh, no ... just got introduced? Oh, uh, porgs.

Porgs. Yeah. Like, the first time a porg shows up. Right. I know a guy, and, and I got to talk to him about the, uh, podcast festival, 'cause he gets, like, a lot of downloads for his podcast, but he's-

We should have him ... he's an Australian comedian who moved to LA. Um- He should come back. Yeah.

We'll buy his flight. He was... Yeah, he was at- We've got all that sweet sponsor money now ... he was here for the wedding that I performed last year. Um, but he was talking about, um, like, all the guests that he has on, and he talks about, like... They do, like, reveal trailer episodes, so it's just like, "Hey, there's a new trailer out, we're gonna talk about it." You know what I mean? Like, there's-

And so, like, the porg intro- That's right. Yeah ... like all the stuff that you- Yeah

... wouldn't see. He's also friends with somebody at Entertainment Weekly, so he gets, like, a lot of good guests. Those trailers are always better than... Like, I like Star Wars- Yeah

... but every time I watch one, I'm like, "Ah, I was duped into watching this- "... this fucking trope again." He had a- Guy's gotta go and do something good, and it's gotta- ... and we're gonna get, you know, stopped at every turn, but somehow we're gonna make it through. Yeah. He had Ben Mendelsohn on, the guy that's in, he's in Rogue One. He's also in, um, Bloodline on it, on Netflix.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the older brother on that, so- Yeah ... like, he's, he gets guests, so it's just-

That's awesome ... I gotta talk to him about it. Well, can he get a guest here, though? I'm sure he could. So...

And his podcast is on Star Wars? Yep. Okay, I'm done shit talking Star Wars podcasts. Yeah.

Please come to the- But yes, we could do ... Columbus Podcast Festival. Uh, do I have any more, as we're wrapping up, um, do you have any, like, future plans for the show? Anything special?

Um, again, just sort of getting back into, uh... You know, I'm committed to myself, obviously. I was gonna mention earlier when you saying like, "Oh, I deleted two episodes," because th- that whole story sounded like you are doing really well hel- holding yourself accountable- Oh, yeah ... to, like, get this shit out. Yeah.

Uh, frankly, uh, uh, I'll make a commitment to your listeners to be- ... sl- you know, more accountable. Right. Uh, but also sort of striving a little bit harder to, um, not just... I'll go ahead and we're deep enough in, just don't put it in the show notes. You know, GCAC is a sponsor of my podcast, and so they sort of, uh, they don't dictate, but one epis- the one episode I gotta get out every month is one of their featured artists. Yeah.

And they're great interviews. Yeah. Um, but I think there's a lot of stories to be told about, uh, the neighborhoods of Columbus, um, about, you know, a deeper dive into some of the, the political things that are happening, you know, conversations surrounding the powers that be that everybody talks about but they don't really know. Um, and a lot of, you know, conversations about tax abatements, and, you know, is city council f- you know, messing things up? I don't really think so. I think that, you know, the school board has a lot of accountability there. Um, I think there... I wanna do better of I wanna do bet- a better job of actually contributing to the discourse rather than, uh, first of all, fulfilling my sponsor responsibility, but also, uh, not just having the cool kids on. Um, and bringing the audience to bear, uh, to have those discussions. So... Do you consider yourself, like, a journalist in that aspect, or...?

I do to an extent, but I, um... 'Cause it's, again, it's interview based. Right. It's not me like, "Hey-" Yeah

"... what do you think about Star Wars?" Right. It's, uh Sorry.

Which there's nothing wrong with. Which there's nothing wrong with that. There's a, a lot of value in that. I do consider my jour- myself a journalist in, insofar as a, uh, somebody who hosts a half hour on CNN every Saturday does. Nice. Yeah. Like, they kinda know what they're gonna hear, I know what I'm gonna hear. I'm not very surprised. I'm super excited when news breaks- Right

... on my podcast. But, uh, it's gonna be hell or high water before somebody cites the Confluence Cast w- as where news broke. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Um, I would love for, if you wanna break news, come on the Con- Confluence Cast. Right. I'll make a... Yeah. But I also have to edit it within two weeks- Right.

... to get it out. Also, I'm super anal about editing. Oh, are you? Like, I edit it to the extent that an NPR interview is edited. Like, uhs are out, extended- Oh, really?

... extended pauses that don't lend any weight. Yeah. See what I did there? Yeah.

That don't lend any weight to the conversation. Yeah. Uh, I'll cut 'em out. 'Cause I wanna s- I, first of all, I wanna sound smart. And two- You want your guests to sound good

... I want my s- guests to sound smart and good- Yeah ... as well so that frankly they share it- Right

... and they're proud of it. Um, 'cause that, you know, some of this is about ego as well. I get it. But yeah, it's to an extent a journalist, yeah. Do you feel like... I don't know, I used to do that in the beginning with editing podcasts where I was, like, super paranoid about, you know, watching the, watching the file, and you just see those gaps in between. I'm like, "Gotta get rid of that. Gotta get rid of that." I feel like the more-

Well, you live listen to it when you edit it, right? Yeah. But I feel like the more I touch it, it's the same thing with, like, when we build machines, the more, like, separate connections we have for, like, wires, the more problems there are for something to come up. Yeah.

The more troubleshooting there is. So the more edits I do, the more cuts I'm doing, there's a bigger chance for it to sound... You notice a bad edit. Yeah. You never, you never notice a good edit. You know what I mean? I mean, I always-

Like, it's one of those- I am al- I always clip it. It's set, not by default, I have to set it every time I edit, but it's set to, um, uh, ripple edit. Okay. All tracks.

Yeah. Um, so it's just basically, like, the part I cut, the other parts come together around it. Um, and I always listen to it again, and sometimes, you know, I fuck up, I cut myself off or cut somebody else off. Yeah. But it's also a graphic interface and, I mean, if somebody wants to give me feedback and say that I'm over-editing it, it sounds like , I'm, you know- To... No. Like, if it sounds like that, tell me, but I don't think it does-

Okay ... from what I've listened to. Uh, but I actually haven't had that experience. You should use, uh, Reaper. Yeah, I think I might. I wanna dabble in it. That's the only- It's r- it's super easy. I mean, I've paid for the premium. It's not a premium version.

It's, like, 60 bucks or something like that? Yeah, but it's not renewing, and, like, I literally just feel like, "Oh, I've been using it for this long. I should- Right ... pay for what I'm using." And also I don't have to wait 10 seconds every time I open it-

Right ... for s- to say still evaluating. I, uh, I've been using GarageBand 6.0 since I started. I got that MacBook. Yeah.

It came with GarageBand 10 or whatever. Yeah. I put 6.0 back on it. Can you do that?

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Can I just get that in the App Store?

Uh, I had to copy 6.0 from my old MacBook- I learned, so I have that- ... onto a hard dri- yeah ... my old MacBook still.

Yeah. He's looking at my new MacBook. Yeah. Uh, my-

We have the same MacBook ... old MacBook, I edit with that o- Yeah ... or rather I do my final mixdown in that one-

Yeah ... 'cause it has the old GarageBand. Yeah, and it has that compression file, and it has- Yes.

It's so good. The new one doesn't have it. So yeah, you can... So what I did- Because it wants you to buy whatever that's called. Final Cut, or not Final Cut. What- The audio-

Whatever their audio version ... the audio equivalent of Final Cut. Yeah. So I have a, like, a network drive at home.

Mm-hmm. I just dropped it in the network thing. It copied all of that GarageBand version over to my network folder, and then on the new MacBook, I just drag that and put it in my apps. Basically copied it to your apps. Yep.

I'll do that. Yeah. Cool. So makes compression a lot easier. Uh, last question.

Yeah. Favorite moment, uh, from podcasting? Uh, I was gonna say earlier that some of the worst podcasts are the ones where, like, people just go on and on about whatever they're promoting, and I hate it. Um, I was s- I've been s... I'm just gonna say, like, the type of episode- Mm-hmm

... um, is the ones that, uh, I get feedback on where it's something that I gave a shit about too. Um, I launched both, uh, both the 61 Forecast and Confluence Cast with a roundup of candidates for office, and that's a lot of work. Oh, yeah. Coordinating all the interviews, letting ev- and it's a lot of w- I was talking about the worst episodes are the ones where people just go on and on. Talk about a politician. Yeah.

And then also sort of boiling it down and giving everybody equal time. Yeah. And without giving... I'm not gonna say to them, "Hey, this is what I boiled our 45 minutes of- Right

... down to five minutes, and this is what I think is important-" Right "... what I said." Uh- You know, I do put the full interview online as well. Um, but it's doing the stuff that, like, matters to people and, like, actually that I get feedback on. Like, that's feels good. Feels good. Nice.

So, yeah. Cool. Uh, any other plugs? Where can people find it or, or find you? Uh, the-con, theconfluencecast.com, timfulton.com, columbusunderground.com. You don't, there's nothing on timfulton.com. I mean, I own it. Uh, but- It's just a Back to the Future fan site

... No, it's just my LinkedIn bio- ... phrased differently. Uh, but yeah, just theconfluencecast.com. And, uh, this is the plug for C- uh, Columbus Podcast Festival as well. 2019, baby. 2019. All in. Signing contracts. Whoo. Getting it. All right. Well, thank you for being on.

Thanks, Billy. I had a pleasure. No, this was great. Can't wait till we do our Back to the Future podcast.

Fuck yeah. Nice. Thank you for listening to The Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Quick side note, uh, Billy and I did end up starting a pop culture time travel podcast after we recorded our interview. You can hear that at outatim.com. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite podcaster. If you're interested in sponsoring The Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.

Transcript13,178 words

Tim Fulton Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, a very special episode. It's been about two years since we launched the Confluence Cast, so I thought it was high time that we talked about what we're trying to do here. This is a rebroadcast of an episode from our friends at the Sounds of Bustown, who interviewed me about where this podcast came from, what the goals are, how the sausage gets made, and we happen to go a little too in depth on Back to the Future. Just a heads up that this episode contains expletives, mostly from me, and it isn't as heavily edited as some of our other episodes. So I do say "um" a lot. I hope this episode provides a little insight into what we're trying to accomplish and provides me a bit of accountability to keep it up going forward. You can get more information on what we've discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. Support for this episode of the Confluence Cast comes from Little Rock Bar. Little Rock Bar is located at 944 North Fourth Street in Italian Village. With 30 beers on tap, Little Rock Bar has happy hour from 4:00 to 7:00 PM every day. Every Tuesday, get $3 draft beers all night while you enjoy Rock Your Cock Off karaoke. Wednesdays is Everybody's a Comedian, hosted by Travis Haywisher. It's like trivia, but you prove your snark instead of smarts. Again, that's Little Rock Bar. Everyone's night should have a little rock. Enjoy the interview. I don't need headphones?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nope. Unless you want them, you can wear mine.

Tim Fulton Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Does it feel weird?

Tim Fulton It feels a little weird.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's weird, isn't it?

Tim Fulton Yeah, just a little bit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I got you. Don't worry about it.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You-

Tim Fulton Do I sound okay?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You sound great.

Tim Fulton Okay, great.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So.

Tim Fulton What do you wanna talk about?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, your podcast.

Tim Fulton Do you have a standard intro that you do?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I do bumpers, so, like, I've already introduced everybody to what we're about to hear.

Tim Fulton But you don't ever... 'Cause I always do the bumper, and then I start, and then I have, like, my theme music goes up.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And then it drops out, and it always starts with, uh... What does it start with?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Do you have a formula? Okay, hold on. Do you wanna introduce yourself, introduce yourself and say what podcast you do?

Tim Fulton Absolutely.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton My name's Tim Fulton. I'm the host of The Confluence Cast-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Excellent

Tim Fulton ... presented by Columbus Underground.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Do you legally have to say that every time?

Tim Fulton I am not contractually obligated to say "presented by Columbus Underground."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Just force of habit at this point.

Tim Fulton Yeah. It's wh- I mean, I don't say it in dinner conversations.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton They're like, "What's your podcast?" I'm like, "It's called The Confluence Cast." "You can find it on Columbus Underground." You know, there's a pod- 'cause there's always a blank stare when you say The Confluence Cast.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton And they're like, they're like, "I know that word, but I don't know what that means." It's the joining of two rivers. That's, that's what a confluence is. I was actually at a thing right before this, and it was, uh, at, it was, like, some host committee for an event at the museum, and they asked everybody to do, like, get to know you exercises.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And the get to know you exercise was tell us what the, uh, what the movement of sound is. Stop.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And there were, and every- and I literally just wrote the Doppler effect.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton And then, parens, this is the right answer, close parens. New parens, this is an asshole answer. Like, this is, that's what it is. I mean, and so everybody went around the room and it was like every, at every table was like, we talked about fabric, or we talked about trees, or we talked about silence, or we talked about, someone talked about the Industrial Revolution. 'Cause it's, it's a movement.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Sort of.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, and the people at my table were like, "Why aren't you giving your answer? It's the right one." I was like, "Because look at the second parens."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton "It's the asshole answer." Everybody's gonna be like, "Wah, wah." The fucking trivia guy.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. The guy, the guy that's like, "There's no fun to be had."

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) This isn't an outside the box thing.

Tim Fulton Every-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... everything is right or wrong here. Which is not how I approach interviews, I don't think.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hmm.

Tim Fulton So, so The Confluence Cast, I'm gonna just, you know, I'm gonna answer some of the questions you're gonna have. So The Confluence Cast, we're, it's an interview-based podcast. Um, interview one person, uh, at a time normally, unless it's meant to be a panel discussion. That's pretty rare. It'll be a panel discussion if it's like a, frankly, if someone basically says, "I'm not comfortable doing this by myself."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Or, "Hey, I don't wanna do this by myself because we really should be giving credit to this other person as well," that's when it's, like, a co-owned art space or something like that. So, but most people in the interview are pretty good about giving credit to everybody.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Whoever's-

Tim Fulton So

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... you know, worked on it.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Uh, did you start it through Columbus Underground, or did you ask them to be a sponsor, and then that's just-

Tim Fulton So The Confluence Cast started, uh, started from Columbus Underground. It was all, it was, uh, um, basically me reaching out to Walker, who's one of the, the founders with his wife Anne, and saying, "Hey, I used to have this podcast, and, uh, I wanna do it again, but I sorta want some of the weight in terms of, uh, promotion. And I do promotion for my job.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I do, you know, social media and stuff like that for my job. Like, I, you know, I'll set up my own website. I'll host it all myself. Um, the benefit for you guys is you have the, you will have the ability to sell into it Um, and it wasn't a money-making thing really, but it w- basically it was my pitch to get somebody else to help with promotion and, and growing listenership. So...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Has that worked out well, then, since you-

Tim Fulton It's worked out okay

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... did the inception?

Tim Fulton Yeah. I mean, uh, it's, it's not making... I'll call, I'll call it a net zero. Uh, you know, there's probably one or two sponsored episodes a month.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton I try to do it weekly. Um, I've really gotten great feedback from them. That's turned out to be a much bigger, uh, virtue than, uh, of that partnership than I thought, in terms of them reaching out and saying, "Hey, we've got, um, we've got our, our develop- our, our, uh, metro reporter, uh, speaking to somebo- to a developer, and could you record that and then you can use it on your podcast? They're gonna write a separate article," and so it's a joint piece. And those, those collaborative works have actually tended to be the most listened to episodes. Um, so yeah, it's, it's turned out well. Uh, and having a line to folks in, you know, more esta- you know, beyond The Dispatch, beyond The Alive, uh, and TV and radio-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... having, having a line to established media to be able to sort of, like, bounce ideas off of is, is great.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, so you say you try to release once a week, or?

Tim Fulton Try to. Um, I've really fallen off. Uh, try to. Certainly, you know, there are certain sponsorship obligations that I have to fulfill-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... so I'm willing to say that I have to get one out a month. Um, but, uh, haven't... In the beginning, did a really good job of sort of maintaining, like, oh, I record on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesday, Wednesdays, release on Thursdays.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's pretty good.

Tim Fulton Uh, and I'll, I'll go ahead and put it out there right now that that's a goal for, to get, to just to get back to that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Um, when it started... So when I started podcasting, it was actually called 61 Forecast.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Uh, and that was me, uh, a woman who's well-known for her, uh, vlogging-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh

Tim Fulton ... uh, Amy Schmittauer, then a fella who does his own podcast, Eric. Uh, it's called The One You Feed. It's one of the best listened to, like-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, yeah

Tim Fulton ... self-help-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... um, podcasts in the country, and he's also based in Columbus. Um, and I feel like we did pretty good. It was, uh, getting everybody to g- like, we tried to do it every week, and we did it every week-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... 'cause we all sort of held each other accountable, and that's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... anybody who's thinking about this stuff, like, you need something to hold you accountable, 'cause otherwise it's like, "Oh, I should do laundry, but I don't have to do laundry." And then you, you know, end up wearing the same pair of jeans three days in a row, which there's nothing wrong with that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There's nothing wrong with that.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Jeans are fine.

Tim Fulton Yeah, jeans are fine. But-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I get... Yeah

Tim Fulton ... you should-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... do something other than that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh, but with that one, it was almost exactly the same format, uh, interview-based, almost exclusively Columbus-based. Uh, and each of the three of us would sort of divvy up, like, um, who's taken what. Some episodes would have two interviews in them. Um, and we would get together, I think, towards the... When we sort of found our rhythm, we were just getting together every couple of weeks and, like, recording intros and outros-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay. Nice

Tim Fulton ... sometimes referred to as bumpers-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... uh, uh, for all the episodes at the same time. That's what taught me how to edit audio. Eric, Eric was already doing it. Amy and I were not. Um, from there, actually, uh, um, Andrew Levitt, uh, who's better known as Nino West-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay

Tim Fulton ... uh, reached out and said, "I wanna do a podcast too." And I was like, "Ooh, I could grow a network."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, and started basically reco- ba- essentially was the engineer for, uh, uh, Andrew, uh, and his co-host, and they, uh, recorded with me a couple of times. I then taught them how to record themselves. I still host their-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay. Cool

Tim Fulton ... well, in terms of, like, data.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton It's my server that those, uh, sit on. Um, and yeah. So I guess I'm the producer of that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... still.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think, yeah.

Tim Fulton And then you and I sit... I'm just sort of going through, like, here's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... all the podcast stuff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, you and I are... We've never called ourse- we've called ourselves the Pod Squad.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, but, uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's our nerdy internal name

Tim Fulton ... we, we are essentially on the board for-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... the Columbus Podcast Festival, which will be entering its third year next year.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton Uh, mark your calendars-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... for April 11th-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) 11th

Tim Fulton ... 12th, 13th, and 14th.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's right.

Tim Fulton Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No plugs

Tim Fulton ... when does this come, come out?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, the 14th of September?

Tim Fulton Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Are we allowed to talk about it then? You want me to bleep it?

Tim Fulton Yeah. I mean... No, we can totally talk about it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton We know the dates. I don't think we can say the venue yet, 'cause I don't have a signed piece of paper.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton But it's, uh, sorry, Garden Theatre.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's a different venue.

Tim Fulton It's a different venue. The Garden Theatre was a fantastic venue for us-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... and I think we've sort of grown out of it, um, in term... Basically, we're hoping to grow out of it, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. Yeah.

Tim Fulton And it's a, the new venue we found is a super safe place to do that, we've found.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton So that's exciting.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton So...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) What's your, like, when it comes to f- like, finding guests for the show, what's your criteria to, like, you're Confluence Cast worthy, or, like, what's your-

Tim Fulton I keep, uh, this is sort of a how do you work thing. So I keep a to-do list on my phone that's, like, synced with my computer, and there's a running list. Uh, uh- ... it's a project in my, um, in my to-do list app that is Confluence Cast guests.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton So I'll try and book up a whole bunch at the same time, and, you know, try to not overload myself so that I'm doing, like, roughly one or two a week.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And so then I have, like, I probably have- Maybe four in the can right now. Um, but it's a lot of... I'd- Some of it's aspirational. I've never had anybody tell me no.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay. That's good.

Tim Fulton I've had somebody not respond.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That happens.

Tim Fulton But it wasn't like... But it was a city person. Like, it was somebody who was the head of a department.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton Uh, that person isn't there anymore. I think the department is still there. But not really. Like-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) They had their moment.

Tim Fulton Yeah. Well, it was the... I mean, I don't mind saying this. It was, the city of Columbus used to have a, a, a head, a... What are the heads of departments called? Uh, the city of Columbus had a head of the, basically the business development.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton And they had a, a small business concierge. And so, uh, I reached out to the person who became the new one, which that person, it really just seemed like they were trying to fulfill, uh, what the previous person had done such a great job at.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton So that's my shout-out to Ryan Schick for-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton ... filling that, filling that role really well the first time. Um, but yeah, it's been, um, great. Met super interesting people. Um, yeah, and a lot of it's aspirational in terms of, oh, I wanna talk to that person, or, oh, it's super interesting to hear how this person works. Um, and yeah, for... And some of it's selfish, actually. Some of it's, uh, I sit on a Columbus, uh, commission that used to be associated with the city called the Create Columbus Commission, and it's a young professionals commission. And we're trying to establish our non-profit status, as the Columbus Podcast Festival-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... needs to soon. Um, and so talking to, like, non-profit leaders and basically, like, "How did you do that?" You know, reaching out to the Women's Fund or other grant-making organizations that I, basically, I need help from.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh, and it's a nice little backdoor.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, so yeah. But it's everybody from, like, you know, a, a, a, a dairy farmer, uh, the guy who runs Snowville Creamery-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, nice

Tim Fulton ... to-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I can't drink that chocolate milk, but it's great. I'm lactose intolerant.

Tim Fulton Okay. So you can't drink any chocolate milk?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No.

Tim Fulton Got it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But that's the one I wanna drink the most.

Tim Fulton Hey, I've heard it's delicious.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's very good.

Tim Fulton Uh, to, hey, wouldn't it be great to get almost, like, a postmortem from Mike Coleman?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, those are the things sitting-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... on my, on my queue.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) To do. Okay.

Tim Fulton Uh, but I wanna make sure that I've got my schedule down pretty good, because asking a person like that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... and not releasing it two weeks later, uh, I would not feel good about that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton So.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, do you find yourself having to explain what a podcast is to a lot of these people, or are they, are they in the know?

Tim Fulton The guests?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Sometimes the guests. I don't feel like I... So, 'cause sometimes it's, like, a bureaucrat or something like that. Um, but for the most part, no.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Um, I have, just like I'm sure you have, like, a form letter that you send to people.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton Uh, I don't actually... I've heard of a lot of podcasters sort of prepping their people and being like... I'll tell them, like, "This is roughly what I wanna talk about," but I don't, I don't give them the questions ahead of time.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Um, and it's not 'cause I'm trying to surprise anybody. I just would much prefer-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Authentic answers?

Tim Fulton Uh, more of a conversation rather than... Like, right now, I'm talking a whole lot-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... more than, uh, I think maybe some of your other guests do, without, like, questions in between.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You'd be surprised.

Tim Fulton Okay. Fair. Uh, I just want it to be much more a conversation.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh, yeah. That's the goal.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Less interview feel, more, more relaxed environment. Like-

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's ideal. That's an ideal conversation to listen to. Like, if you come off, like, too radio, I guess.

Tim Fulton Right. Well, like, like, literally throwing softballs up in the air and just-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... letting them hit it out of the park.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, the other thing is I try... While it's Columbus-based, like, I get pitched a lot on events.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton And part of it, part of this goes back to, well, I'm not gonna commit that this is gonna be out-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... at, at any certain point-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... so this is a bad idea.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, but, and having a background in public relations, I'm like, "I'm not interested in promoting your event or your exhibition. I'm much more interested in learning about this." And the, the, the timely pieces that I've done, I've been super conscious of, um, making sure that it has at least some value two months later.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton The, I think the best example is that, of that is the city was trying to amend its, uh, charter, and it ba- which is basically the city's constitution.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton It's the legal, you know, it's the, the, the legal thing that, uh, that, that governs the city. And they were thinking about changing it, and I... So I sat down with the chair of the past charter review commission to talk about, like, "Hey, what's the charter? Hey, why is it that, like, this?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton "Hey, what makes Columbus different from other cities?" I super encourage anybody to listen to it who actually lives in Columbus, 'cause it's super interesting to find out, like, we're super... There, there's this huge focus on, um, like how many council seats there are. This is why they were amending the charter.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton How many council seats, whether they're, um, uh, geographically based, like a ward-type system.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton But at its heart, in Columbus, we're, the mayor is much stronger than council. Like, the mayor controls a budget, and, like, and controls almost all the departments.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And council is- ... does a lot, but we, it's a very strong mayor. Anyway, what, what's interesting is the day before I recorded that interview, they actually tabled, uh, the, their charter review commission at the time, and I was like, "Should I still do it?" And I was like, "Oh, fuck yeah-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... I should still do it." Like, this is, uh, important, and hopefully if anybody Googles it, it comes up.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton You know what I mean?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, and again, super interesting to me, so.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) How do you like, uh, with something like that, what would you... Do you worry about, like, titling the episode or anything like that? Or y- is it just, like, the guest name, what they do, or is it just-

Tim Fulton For me, it's almost alwa- and I don't know if this, still the standard, but I'm sort of locked into it at this point, is, is, you know, the title is the number of the episode-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... colon whatever the subject matter is. Um, you know, I listen to some, I listen to some podcasts and it's, you know, sometimes it's just ridiculous-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... what people are saying. Like, uh, you know, just inventing some paradox that in the middle of a two-and-a-half hour- ... episode, somebody, like, says, "Is that, like, so-and-so paradox?" And it's like, "Yep," and they move right along.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And it's not what the episode's about at all. Uh, but sometimes people just like hearing, you know, two guys talk to each other.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton But yeah, it's almost always, you know, with the charter, it was Columbus City Charter.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There you go.

Tim Fulton And the-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... title image was city hall. Uh, or if it's an artist-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, you do, you do a title image for everything, I guess. I didn't even think about, like...

Tim Fulton I, well, 'cause it's goes up in a blog is the theme.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton So that they can-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Got ya

Tim Fulton ... you know, so that they can see the show notes and stuff. Um, you know, name of an artist, subject matter, if it's something, something like Independence Day or an arts gallery-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... or, uh, a developer, it'll be the name of the developer, not the name of the person from the developer-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, yeah

Tim Fulton ... that you're talking to.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton That's not... Yeah, I don't, uh, what do other people do?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think it depends on the podcast.

Tim Fulton What are you gonna name this?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, Confluence Cast.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Presented by Columbus Underground.

Tim Fulton The new-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No, probably just Columbus-

Tim Fulton Yeah. Uh...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Probably just Confluence Cast. So.

Tim Fulton What's funny is when I bought the URL, I don't, I've never told anyone this.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) All right.

Tim Fulton So when-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Exclusives

Tim Fulton ... so when I bought the URL, I just typed in theconfluencecast.com, spun up the WordPress site-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... got all the plugins in there that I needed, and launched the episodes. I never searched for confluencecast.com. Uh, so I'm now properly The Confluence Cast.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Like the Ohio State University. But if you go to confluencecast.com, it also redirects.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It'll redirect.

Tim Fulton It, it just reroutes back to. I'm just paying an extra $14 a year. So.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You can sit on it and somebody else might wanna come along and-

Tim Fulton Yeah, by the way-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... start their own

Tim Fulton ... we are on Patreon if you'd like to-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, nice

Tim Fulton ... uh... Are you on Patreon?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I am not. I've, I've thought about it, but that seems like a lot more upkeep to, to do than-

Tim Fulton So-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... already doing four other podcasts

Tim Fulton ... I think there's some expectation that... A- and you should, I guess. It's set up to be like, oh, you get exclusives and stuff-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... like that. I'm not en- encouraging anyone to stop patronizing me on Patreon.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton But I don't really... I mean, I post it there-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... so that those folks see it. Um, and I'll, I actually do release episodes, don't promote them, and wait for Columbus Underground to put them up on their site-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay

Tim Fulton ... before I start promoting it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And that's just, they've never even asked me to do it. I just wanna be kind to them.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton So, uh, so those folks, I guess, see it first, but I think I've gotten, like, $14 or something-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice

Tim Fulton ... over the course of last year.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice. Pays for the, pays for the other URL.

Tim Fulton Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. I did, I did just pay for my shitty URL.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Zero netting or whatever. You net zero.

Tim Fulton Net zero. No loss.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, we, I just talked about this on another podcast I did, where it kinda changes the relationship, I think the moment you start kinda... I mean, if you're not, like, mentioning it all the time or, like, begging people for it, but it's just one of those things where it's just like, "Please give us money-

Tim Fulton Well-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... and we'll try to, like, do special stuff for you." Like, uh, I, I, I just...

Tim Fulton Yeah. I feel like that's... Uh, I mention it at every podcast.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Um, I don't... Do I link to it? I think I still link to it in, like, the footer of the Columbus Underground article. That may get stripped out when it gets edited. Uh, but I don't, like, talk about special benefits 'cause it's not, like... I, I think anybody that gets into this because they're like, "Well, I'm funny," or, "I, people wanna listen to me," or, "People don't wanna listen to me in a bar, but they may wanna listen to me, uh, and I could make some money off of it," is doing it for absolutely the wrong reason.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I mean, my... I got into this so, just short biography of how we got here.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yes.

Tim Fulton Uh, I grew up doing theater. Um, I was fine. Uh, I was-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Reviews were okay.

Tim Fulton Were fi- I mean, I, you know, I had some big roles for being a 17-year-old. Um, I'm on IMDb.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, nice.

Tim Fulton Uh, that's, like, a cool, like, thing you could... If I were single, I would put that on a dating app- ... I guess. When I was single, I didn't put it on a dating app. I discovered I wasn't, like, I'm not gonna be... You could, you can fuck around when you're 17.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton But then, like, you go to college, and I was m- uh, I was like, "Okay, I gotta figure out how to go to c- or where I'm gonna go to college and what I'm gonna do," and I was like, "I wanna do theater, but I know I'm not that good." And, like, I think I'm good-looking, but I'm not, like, that good-looking that I can just get away with being mediocre. Uh, so I, I started, uh, I had always been doing, like, stage management and directing theater-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... stuff like that, so I majored in theater design at Otterbein. They have a fantastic program for it. Um, it was a BFA program. Dropped out, uh, and ... was

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Like a, a left turn I didn't see coming right there

Tim Fulton Well, it was just like the thing, if a serious person says, "Why didn't you finish that degree?" I say, "Uh, I didn't wanna look for a job every six months of my life."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton 'Cause that's what that kind of thing is, especially when you're... I mean, you're a technical person.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, when you're... Well, when you're a technical person working in theater, and it's not like auditions. Like, it is truly exactly who you know.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton So you can get picked up for a tour, so you can get picked up for, uh, a residency, and at that point, I wasn't, um, you know, thinking about family really, but I didn't think that I wanted that to be my life.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton To like, you know, go and do, uh, regional theater, and then go and... I was already... My mom lived in New York, and so I was in New York a lot, but I just didn't want... I wanted a home base, and frankly, I wa- I knew at that point that I still wanted it to be Columbus. So anyway, uh, I was doing, uh, some marketing and some sort of event hosting, and then I, and I was working at the door at a bar, and we were looking for something to do on Tuesday nights. And the, one or the other door guys said, "We should do trivia." And it didn't exist in Columbus at all.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hmm.

Tim Fulton Uh, this is, uh, documented in- ... uh, uh, one of my two covers of the Columbus Alive. Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, look at you

Tim Fulton ... I, I've got everybody get... Well- So the first one was by virtue of working there.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton I was the, I was the marketing director. Uh, and literally the editor, uh, came out to me and said, "All right, Tim, everybody gets one." And my first cover was me standing in a suit outside of a dumpster- ... uh, dressed up as a bas- dressed up as a waiter, holding a tray of garbage. Uh, and it was an, uh, the feature story was about dumpster diving.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton Like, it had nothing to do with me. Um, and then the second cover I was on for trivia.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Uh, I think the shitty headline was Trivia Explosion, uh, because trivia was happening everywhere. But the, all this is to say that I am credited in that article by another-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice

Tim Fulton ... trivia host as being the OG of Columbus trivia. For those that don't know, OG means original gangster.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton Gee. Uh, so, and so I did that for, like eight years, uh, hosted trivia, and people were like... Like, to the extent where I had a semi-professional job.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And people were like, "Why are you doing this?" And I was like, "Honestly, it gets, like, the acting-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... and, like, stage performance bug out."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, along with that, I started a, a, a staged event called, with a, with a group of guys, called Motive, where I interviewed folks, and so that got that bug out. And then Motive sort of, um, it did what, exactly what it was supposed to do, and it, it went away. And, uh, started doing that podcast, and I was like, "This gets the bug out."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton "This is enough." So I do wanna take this opportunity to say on, uh, the, on the recording, I haven't been interviewed, uh- ... before other than, like, public relations-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... trivia stuff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Do you g- you still do the trivia then, or is that-

Tim Fulton So I still, uh, I still own a company that hosts trivia nights.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton I don't do it on a regular basis. I stopped doing it Father's Day three years ago. Uh, very specifically 'cause I was about to have, uh, my daughter, Piper.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay. Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, and it just wasn't... I was doing it, like, two and a half nights a week, and that just wasn't cool.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Like, it was like I, you know, I wanted to be home with my daughter.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton So, uh, and it's, while it's fun and the money's fine, it's not sort of worth it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... to do it. So I have a couple of hosts that work for me. They're great. Bodega is now the longest running trivia night in Columbus, um, and I'm proud of that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Where is it at?

Tim Fulton Bodega?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton On Sunday nights.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay. Nice.

Tim Fulton Are you familiar with Bodega?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I'm not, I'm not.

Tim Fulton Oh.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I'm not-

Tim Fulton It's in Short North

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... Okay, yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I was gonna say, I'm not, like, the bar crawling guy unless they got, like, a sh- like, a band's gonna play there that I'm gonna go to. That's the whole thing.

Tim Fulton Bodega is Short Nor- it's like the northernmost of the old Short North.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton About a block and a half south of Scully's. Uh, first bar in Columbus to be non-smoking.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton So it was non-smoking before even the Columbus Smoking Ban.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Wow.

Tim Fulton So I'm that old.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That make a lot of people mad at that point probably?

Tim Fulton Uh, no, because it opened that way.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton Yeah. It opened as, like, which-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's an alternative for the people that didn't wanna be around cigarette smoke too?

Tim Fulton Well, no, but it was wei- I mean, in Columbus at that time, it was like everyb- it was just assumed-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay

Tim Fulton ... um, that you could smoke.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hmm.

Tim Fulton And that was, uh, my how far we've come.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Or, and the country. I mean, you, I-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There's still spots.

Tim Fulton Yeah. There's still spo- Can you still smoke in Indy?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, I think there. Georgia, you definitely can.

Tim Fulton I was down in Georgia a couple weeks ago, and it was cool. I, 'cause I'm a smoker. And I, I was like, "Oh, what?" It was like novel-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... but also even the, the shitty bars, because it's not the norm everywhere all around the country, even the shitty bars have, like, a casino HVAC system that's, like, just sucking all the smoke out immediately.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You must've been in a nice bar then.

Tim Fulton No, it was, it was-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay

Tim Fulton ... all in the wall. That, that's what I was surprised by.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton That it was, like, sucking it out. It wasn't like... I mean, when I worked the door, this was at the old Andy Man's Treehouse.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, the owner didn't smoke, and he was also a bartender. He bartended, like, three nights a week. He would get sick every-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, really?

Tim Fulton ... quarter, and, like, and bad.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, like, like- God, is Quinn okay? Uh, and after the smoking ban and after, uh, he sold the bar, he was fine. Like, 'cause it, not only did he have to get away from the smoke, he had to get away from the remnants of it. Uh, and he hasn't really been that sick-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hm

Tim Fulton ... since, so smoking ban.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Smoking ban.

Tim Fulton That's that chapter.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton Do you put the, do you put it into chapters?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I don't. Do you want me to especially for you? Like, do you want me to do like a-

Tim Fulton No, but like, do people do that?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I don't think so.

Tim Fulton 'Cause it used to be when podcasts came out, there was like, you could, there was some software, I think Apple's, uh, GarageBand, um, let you put in-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There were like markers or whatever where you could-

Tim Fulton There were markers-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... that you could also line up with images.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton So that if you picked up like your iPod Touch, if-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, yeah

Tim Fulton ... you have like an image.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's still in there.

Tim Fulton You can still do that?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. What do you use to edit your podcast?

Tim Fulton Uh, I edit, I record in Reaper, uh, and edit the interview in Reaper, and then always just export that and normalize it in that, and then put it into GarageBand.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) And then like go from like a WAV format down to an MP3 or...?

Tim Fulton I export directly to MP3 from GarageBand. Um, like, uh, Dragcast, which is Andrew Levitt/Nina West podcast, he always sends me a WAV format, and I have to-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Shrink it down

Tim Fulton ... well, it's probably why I'm still-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... paying Adobe money every month- ... so that I can have their... It's sweet. Their converter is great-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay

Tim Fulton ... from like WAV to MP3, so I don't have to like put it in GarageBand and worry that it's gonna add whatever I was doing the last time it had o- I had it open. Does that make sense?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No. I mean, I usually drop WAV files into GarageBand, edit down, and then share it as a MP3. Or like when you go to share it to export, you can choose MP3 or...

Tim Fulton I literally, with GarageBand, it's like a... There's gotta be an analogy here, but every time I open it, it's literally just the same project. Delete the tracks from before, but it's got the levels that I like for my theme music.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton I just add another theme music over top of it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... if my intro's longer. Um, and then I skim the whole thing to make sure there isn't like, if I interviewed a musici- musician, I'll drop in a song and I just make sure that stuff isn't in there. So-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Huh

Tim Fulton ... that's how I do it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's crazy.

Tim Fulton I mean, it's like, I think it's super similar to, 'cause I haven't talked to anybody that does it that way, but that's how I learned to do it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton And so it's, I don't care.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. Yeah. I mean, if it works for you.

Tim Fulton And it's not any, and it's not any better than... I mean, there's, some of the top-ranked podcasts out there-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... are, you know, recorded in people's bedrooms and-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... by the way, thank you for joining me in my home.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, not a problem. Now that I don't have a co-host anymore, it's a lot easier for me to just throw stuff in my backpack and go somewhere.

Tim Fulton Right. Well, you don't, you only have one person to coordinate with, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah. So do you have a, like an at home studio too?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, no, that tote that I have at the podcast festival-

Tim Fulton Uh-huh

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... that's just what I carry around. So, like, I take that to my work-

Tim Fulton Okay

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... if I'm recording in my conference room at work.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Or-

Tim Fulton Like at lunch or something?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, or I'll take it, um, to people's places. Like, if there's more than three people-

Tim Fulton Okay

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... I generally just pull that out and then give, hand everybody a mic and then...

Tim Fulton So you don't have a desk at home that has like a mic on a stand set up?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um-

Tim Fulton Your wife doesn't let you do that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I have a Blue Yeti upstairs.

Tim Fulton Oof.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I never use it.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I bought it, I bought it for a-

Tim Fulton I have one downstairs. I g- like, because it's the stuff that you buy when you're like, when you're like starting.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And then you realize they're great microphones.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton They are re- super, you know-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... solid quality, but if you don't have an external thing, you can't hear yourself.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton And you wanna be able to hear, especially when you're recording like an intro.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton You wanna be able-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I wanna check my levels. I wanna know that I'm, everything sounds fine and-

Tim Fulton Right. You don't just wanna look at a series of eight green lights or whatever it is.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Um, yeah, this is pretty much the mobile stuff. If I'm going to festivals or one-on-ones, stuff like that, then I just kinda bring this.

Tim Fulton Just some double A's in there? And that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton What is it? A Zoom-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Four double A's. A Zoom H6.

Tim Fulton It's nice.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So.

Tim Fulton Nice carrying case, folks, too.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Comes with it.

Tim Fulton Ah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Don't, don't gotta pay extra for it.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So.

Tim Fulton My Zoom didn't come... I use the handheld like, it's basically last resort.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Like, I use it if, "Oh shit, I gotta get this episode out today."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, got it.

Tim Fulton I'll use it for an intro.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay, yeah.

Tim Fulton But I try to actually keep in my bag, like you know those banker's bags?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like those bags that you normally people keep wads of cash in.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I keep one in my bag, and it's just a little Zoom mobile-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay

Tim Fulton ... uh, H-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Like the H1 or...?

Tim Fulton Yeah, something like that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And then a, um, short XLR and a shitty condenser mic-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... just so that I can be ready to do it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I take my H4n that I have, I still have that, and I take that on the road with me.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So in case I'm, I do a lot of editing now when I'm traveling, 'cause it's like my only time to do it it seems like.

Tim Fulton Are you recording a lot, like over Skype or-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm

Tim Fulton ... always in person?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Always in person generally. I did one over the phone interview.

Tim Fulton And it wasn't great, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, it was fine.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But it could've been better. It, I realized after it how I could've improved it.

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But yeah, it, it, it wasn't ideal. It's just hard to do when you, when you're talking to somebody or trying to do an interview and you can't see their face.

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's very hard to like, you don't wanna step over them.

Tim Fulton Well, it's like a conference line too, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton But thankfully you can fix a lot of that stuff in post.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton One podcast that like is, one, just super well produ- and y- it's made by The New York Times, so like- ... they've got, you know-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) They got that money

Tim Fulton ... they have some resources available to them, but they also do, now that they've sort of gotten into their swing of things, 'cause it's only like six months old or-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... eight months old or something, they've gotten really good at sort of adding in- Like when they call people.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton So like li- hear the phone ringing, you hear an assistant pick up or if they've got a, if they're calling a, a reporter, they'll be like calling a hotel and then asking for someone.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton And that, and like even to the point where the reporter will be like, "Hey, hold on. I'm gonna put on hands-free." And then they go to hands-free and they're like... Hey, remember this is an audio recording? That's not a good idea. Uh, and it's just really, um, people love seeing sort of the... It's one thing I wanna start doing more if I wasn't in such a rush-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... is sort of adding in, when people listen to my podcast, there are n- there's normally three minutes of audio, uh, before they ever start hearing it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, do you have like a, you don't set levels really 'cause this thing is so good that it's just sort of-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, I mean, I'm, I'm making sure.

Tim Fulton And you could set up levels in post too a little bit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, a little bit, but like this has got individual knobs that I can tune the gain to.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) If you're like, like, uh, Jake, the old co-host was like a lot louder and boomier in his normal voice.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So I had to like set his a little bit lower, but that, the mixer that I use as well, the Behringer mixer also has different-

Tim Fulton Gotcha

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... individual levels that I play around with. Some people are a little like light talkers.

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So you gotta make sure that-

Tim Fulton You turn them way up.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Or that they're swallowing their microphone.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Right. Uh, so yeah, like literally I have, uh, well there's, I, I think I'm at s- roughly 60 episodes now. There's 60 people that I've said, uh, "Hey, just so I can set levels, can you tell me what you had for breakfast this morning?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton And someday, maybe once I get to 100 episodes, I will literally just release what everyone had for breakfast that morning.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You still record it and group them together and...

Tim Fulton Uh, yeah. Well, I'll just, I mean, I have all the raw files.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay. Yeah.

Tim Fulton So I'll just, you know-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Go back through and edit them all

Tim Fulton ... and it's super easy to edit, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh.

Tim Fulton 'Cause it's the beginning of all of it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. That's actually not a bad idea.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Fun fact, you're my 100th episode for It Sounds The Best.

Tim Fulton Hey. Well, that's an honor.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Thanks.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) My, my, f- yeah.

Tim Fulton Well, congratulations.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Thank you.

Tim Fulton That's a big deal.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, I know. Uh- ... I did it with another I d- well, I did it with another podcast a few weeks ago with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) And, uh, I deleted episodes 99 and 100, so it was ...

Tim Fulton Like accidentally?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. It was, I was trying to-

Tim Fulton How do you still do that? You're a veteran.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I was, uh, sick, so it was like a perfect storm of me happening to record. I had just been to a concert the night before, and I was going to a work pic- there was like a wh- a whole storm-

Tim Fulton Of things happening

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... of just things happening

Tim Fulton And you were sick.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) And I was worried that I didn't have enough space, 'cause I still had all the Podcast Festival files on there.

Tim Fulton Mm-hmm.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) And I'm like, we normally like bulk record for like four hours.

Tim Fulton Oh, you do?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, so it was one of those things like I don't wanna run out in the middle. I have two 64 gigabyte SD cards.

Tim Fulton What do you t- and I apologize for not knowing.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Sorry.

Tim Fulton What do you talk about on your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles podcast?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, we review episodes of the old cartoon show.

Tim Fulton The animated one-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So like-

Tim Fulton ... with Hot April O'Neil

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... yeah, we do like a rap- Hot April O'Neil.

Tim Fulton Yeah. You talk about her?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, the very first episode my brother-in-law was like, "I didn't realize like how hot she was." It was like-

Tim Fulton Oh, 'cause you didn't think about it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You didn't even know about it then

Tim Fulton ... you haven't seen it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... since then.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, but those are only like half an hour long, but this was like the, um, the rule of-

Tim Fulton So do you live talk through it?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No, no, no, no. We do like a post thing. I can't-

Tim Fulton So you talk about the plot.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton You talk about-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) How dumb it was and how much I've ruined my childhood.

Tim Fulton See, I don't listen, I don't listen. So I, you know, I have my, my blog feed or whatever.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And there's one on there that's, uh, going through every episode of The Simpsons.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And I'm like, "That's cool."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) See-

Tim Fulton I've never listened to it, I just, I'm like-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) At all

Tim Fulton ... "Is that interesting?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There's a couple that do that now. There's an Australian one called-

Tim Fulton Well, and there's one that's still going on, I think, or maybe it's recently finished-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... for The West Wing.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, wow.

Tim Fulton Which I'm probably on my 12th-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Wow

Tim Fulton ... like rewa- like I'll just watch it at lunch.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I'm like, "Oh, Josh." Like I, uh... Yeah, it's like that and Back to the Future are like the things that I nerd out about.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I watch Back to the Future trilogy at least once a year.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So.

Tim Fulton So-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... oh, I haven't been able to say this anywhere. Uh, I convince... So my daughter is pretty, like I'll play her a new song, and she will not wanna hear it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Even if it's a song she'll like, I'll have to like listen to her scream.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Just to get through.

Tim Fulton Uh, which is a function of, frankly, poor parenting on my part- ... leading up to that point of not l- of not sort of setting an expectation, "Hey, you can't listen to whatever you want." Um, but based on like the, the Back to the Future toys that I have around the house, then she'll be like, "What's that?" 'Cause of course she can't play with them. They're collectors items.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Not allowed to touch that stuff.

Tim Fulton Uh, those are Daddy's toys. Uh, which brings up a whole nother weird set of things you have to tell your children. Uh, she was, got super excited about the idea of Back to the Future, and then watched it and loved it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton To the point now where, yeah, she still asks for her princess show, which is not that bad, uh, in terms of like morals it teaches. Like Frozen, don't even get me started about- ... how that's a convoluted... If you don't watch all of the way to the end-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... it's like love from a man is the only thing that's ever gonna make you happy.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's only gonna tame the wild heart of a woman.

Tim Fulton Well, and somehow if you have a cold heart, you're more sexualized.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton That's, ugh.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Anyway, uh, she watched Back to the Future and loved it to the point where now she, I'm like, she's like, "I wanna watch Back to the U-ture." And I'm like, "Okay, which one?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton And she's like, "Not the one with the cowboys." Or like sometimes she wants the-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Underrated, but I get it.

Tim Fulton I think it's good.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I do too.

Tim Fulton It wraps it up really well.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) We heard enough from Marty in the first two. Let's get Doc's perspective on some stuff.

Tim Fulton Right. Yeah, Doc's allowed to love too.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I'm, I imagine I'll love that film much more in my, in my waning years.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, shot in the back over the matter of $80. Uh, wait, I'm sorry. What were we talking about?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I have a Lego DeLorean on my toolbox.

Tim Fulton You do?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah, I have the Lego DeLorean too. Do you think it's weird that they issued, uh, and maybe all Lego things do, uh, issued it in French as like-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think, yeah, I think-

Tim Fulton The box is English and French.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And I just never bought anything that was... I don't buy a lot of Legos.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh-

Tim Fulton I buy a lot of Back to the Future stuff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think it, yeah. I think it, it bounces back and forth between Spanish and French.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think they're going for, like, it's probably something to do with, like-

Tim Fulton I feel like I bought the Canadian-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, like the, yeah, the Quebec version

Tim Fulton ... the Quebec version.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Where it's legally-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Could've-

Tim Fulton ... required that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Correct

Tim Fulton ... everything is in English.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Have French just right underneath it.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, yeah, we were talking about podcasting and stuff, I think.

Tim Fulton That's, that's about where we were.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, tell me about your intro music.

Tim Fulton Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) 'Cause I love it.

Tim Fulton Thank you. Uh, I have a friend who is, uh, he had com- uh, he had, when I was starting the podcast, had, uh, composed some music for a video game.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay, sweet.

Tim Fulton Um-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) What game?

Tim Fulton I'm sorry, that's actually not true.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton He created a video game for music that a friend of his had done.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hmm.

Tim Fulton Um, and I was super excited about just the idea of that. Um, I've, you know, background in theater, but I also used to work at the Wexner Center, and I actually really like conceptual stuff like that that can only be ex- at, at a time feels very personal because it's not like you and 20 people looking at a big piece of art.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Or you and 200 people watching a play where it's, like, a super visceral personal experience. Um, so we were talking about that, and he was talking about how he really wanted to get into that sort of thing. And, uh, I basically was like, "I'll give you a nominal amount of money for- ... you to write this theme music, but here's what I want it to be." You were ready for the inspiration?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton Please cut in my theme music at some point in here.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I was gonna use it at the bumpers, but I'll also do it here if you'd like.

Tim Fulton Okay.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton So just, like, just, just the beginning-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay

Tim Fulton ... right now. So the inspi- Literally all the, all I gave him for that was, "Hey, do you know the Night Court theme song?" "Cool. Can you make it a little more fun?" "And I really like the slap bass in the second iteration of Law & Order." And that's what it was. So it's got that bow-now.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's pretty good.

Tim Fulton That's, that's where I was like, "Give me Night Court and Law & Order," but, like, not the modern Law & Order-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... but, like, the slap bass one.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's like if, if, um, the first half of Law & Order was the law por- the law part, and then the back half, the order part, just turned into a Night Court episode.

Tim Fulton Yes.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So it went-

Tim Fulton 'Cause it starts kind of like, oh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... this is impactful. And then it's like Like, it sounds like a children's intro.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It, yeah, that would... I would love to see that skit on, like, Saturday Night Live, where it's just like the first half is, like, really hardcore detectives, really gruesome murder, a sex crime or something like that.

Tim Fulton And then at the half hour mark- ... it's just a comedic courtroom.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's Bull and-

Tim Fulton Right

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... the rest of the gang, like.

Tim Fulton Bull, Bull walks in, calls order. And then, but you still get the twist at the 45-minute mark-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton ... where it's like they've been making, it's like jokes, jokes, jokes, and then all of a sudden it's like the mother was raping the daughter. Oh, shit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. How's Harry gonna-

Tim Fulton How's Harry gonna-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... get out of this one?

Tim Fulton ... answer with that? Make a sexist joke.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. That's exactly how it would play out. Gotta see this. That's, that's wonderful.

Tim Fulton Oh, I love a good, like, conceptual mashup.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Like, what if Back to the Future were a horror film? Or, 'cause I'm cut- 'cause I'm that much of a fan that, like, people see something and then share it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... like on my Facebook wall or something, and they're like, "You gotta see it." So I see all the iterations of all that stuff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Have you thought about, in Back to the Future III, that at one point there are four DeLoreans in the same time zone?

Tim Fulton So there are, same point in time.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, there are various graphical... So I have, we're actually sitting by one of them. This is a local artist-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay, nice

Tim Fulton ... that did this. This is, uh, um, uh, it's called We're Going Back. I think Cody Smith is his name.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton Uh, so this is one of three prints that were made of this piece. So this was featured, th- then this was mass-produced and sold by, like, BTTF.com-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... or something. Um, so I w- don't break into my home. Uh, so I have various, like, pieces.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton There's actually a set piece from Back to the Future II upstairs.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton It's from the '80s diner.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Uh, you can't see it in the movie, though. But you can tell it's the same thing-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... because of the, the color scheme or whatever. My friend was a tour guide at Universal.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton Um, so I'm that much of a fan. Uh, I have seen graphical representations of the timeline. I have not studied them very much. I'm gonna admit some, like, I can talk to you about, like, why Crispin Glover was fired and, like, uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, yeah. That's a crazy story as well.

Tim Fulton Well, it's not... It, the lawsuit is what's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... interesting.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, it's not that crazy. He's fucking crazy.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Well, yeah, the, the fact that he wanted-

Tim Fulton I respect him very much. Like, that Rats movie is fucking great. Uh...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) The fact that he wanted as much Marty as like, or as much money as Marty.

Tim Fulton Right.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Like, 'cause he's like, "I'm also one of the stars." Like, not really, bud.

Tim Fulton Not really.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You're kind of a-

Tim Fulton Well, what's interesting is they, so they repla- after the, so for... And I will get to your answer here-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton ... in a second. But they replaced, uh, uh, uh, uh, Jennifer and- Crispin Glover's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... character, the dad in the second film. They made no qual- They just reshot the end of the first movie-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton ... for the beginning of the second one. Didn't make any qualms about the fact that it was Elizabeth Shue now.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh, but I believe that Crispin Glover had the... Like, they just made up some no-name actor, hung him upside down.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Dressed him to look like Crispin Glover.

Tim Fulton Dressed him to look exactly-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... like Crispin Glover, and probably with some amount of prosthetics.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, yeah. That's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, I never thought about that

Tim Fulton ... I don't-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Why wouldn't they have done the-

Tim Fulton I don't know what his contract said, but there's some amount of intellectual property there-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... that people are like, "Oh, it's great. Crispin Glover's still in it."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Well, it's when they li- like, when they license, like, video game movies or movies from video game-

Tim Fulton Right

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... or you know what I mean? Like, they have to also then contract the star of that movie to be in the game. You know what I mean? Like that face. Like, the Mission Impossible video games do not have Tom Cruise's likeness in them because it's just one of those things, like, the likeness rights, I think is actually what it's called.

Tim Fulton So, oh, what you're saying is they could... Without paying Tom Cruise-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... they couldn't put a Tom Cruise face, even if it was, like, somebody impersonating-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... his voice or something similar.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) They can get, they can get the IP for the movie or for the game rights from the movie, but they also have to then get the likeness rights of the actors that they wanna have in it.

Tim Fulton Yeah, so-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So yeah, he-

Tim Fulton Given that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... Crispin Glover had a case.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Absolutely.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, very much so. I just thought he was nuts for, like-

Tim Fulton So when i- I'm going to admit this

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... mm-hmm

Tim Fulton ... when are there four DeLoreans? This is in two?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) This is in-

Tim Fulton That's gotta be in two

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... the end of two to three, like in between. And-

Tim Fulton Okay

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... where Marty goes back to 1955 to then fix the alternate timeline.

Tim Fulton So I've been watching... Piper, my daughter-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton ... has been watching... I just realized that's the first time I've said her name in a, in a year. Uh, don't be creepy. Um-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I think it was the second time-

Tim Fulton Oh, okay

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... you talked about her.

Tim Fulton The... So this is when Marty basically says to Doc, "What about Jennifer? What about Doc?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And Doc says, "Well, if we succeed, then they'll just be automatically transported"-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) They'll end up in the right timeline

Tim Fulton ... which by the way, that's bullshit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Very much bullshit.

Tim Fulton Uh-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) They're lost in that timeline.

Tim Fulton Uh, they will, they will then be infinitely stuck in that timeline 'cause it's the, the worst timeline.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Like we're in now. Um-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It just took us-

Tim Fulton So-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... 31 years

Tim Fulton ... and then, and then Doc basically says something to the effect of, "We have to succeed."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton And so then they go back. So they go back to 1955. There are not four DeLoreans because- ... 2000... Shit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There are.

Tim Fulton Hold on.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) S- Can I walk you through it?

Tim Fulton Walk me through it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So you have original Back to the Future DeLorean.

Tim Fulton Oh wait, they are, because Marty's in the backseat of the fucking Cadillac-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep

Tim Fulton ... or whatever it is when 2015 Biff-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... is there talking-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... to 1955 Biff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) S- see-

Tim Fulton So that's three DeLoreans right there because he's there from the first movie.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton So where's the fourth DeLorean?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hidden, buried in the, in the mines.

Tim Fulton Ah. Buried at the drive-in movie theater.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Buried in the mines. Four DeLoreans.

Tim Fulton No shit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep. There's enough DeLoreans. I think it... I know they would've, like, like ruptured the timeline if he would've taken off of this DeLorean to, you know what I mean, rob Peter to pay Paul with this DeLorean of all the DeLoreans that were in that. You know what I mean? If you were like, "Okay, we need a fuel line-"

Tim Fulton Meaning back, so if there was a fourth one... 'Cause there's been rumors about a fourth one. I don't know. I don't know.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I doubt that's gonna happen.

Tim Fulton But there were also, like, rumors that there was gonna be a staged musical.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, right.

Tim Fulton Uh, this was in like 2013 maybe that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... that was going on. They, uh... That would be a great, like, you do, like, a switcheroo and, like, you fuck up the space-time continuum-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... and you don't get it back in time.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Because don't they actually steal? Because old Biff, 2015 Biff steals the DeLorean-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep

Tim Fulton ... in two, goes back to '55, returns it to good, quote-unquote, "good" 2015-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... while Doc and Marty are still there.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. So it doesn't make sense that he was able to even-

Tim Fulton Oh, but he skipped it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton He skipped it. So it d- But what doesn't make sense is that he was a... If his plan worked-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) He would have ended up-

Tim Fulton ... wow, this movie is bullshit

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... yeah, it's full of flaws. Sorry.

Tim Fulton I just, I've always just...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Well, he also gets out of that when he returns it. He also gets out of it and dies.

Tim Fulton Right, and the head-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, 'cause he, like, disappears-

Tim Fulton Oh, and yeah, they never even really addressed that

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... 'cause he's not even supposed to be in that, he's not supposed to be in that timeline.

Tim Fulton He just dies?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) He di... You see him, like, struggle as he gets out of the car, and it's like-

Tim Fulton Oh, and that's why.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton I, I, I never pa- I fucking hate Biff-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... and so I don't-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, you don't worry about it

Tim Fulton ... pay attention to that aspect-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... of it. But he didn't, like... It's not hard to make someone disappear.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No.

Tim Fulton But also, that's very similar to the first film when he's trying to play-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right, and he starts to disappear

Tim Fulton ... w- uh, Marvin Berry, uh, and he starts, like, not being able to play the guitar, but then he holds it... It would've been a cool thing, and it's probably on the cutting room floor. It would've been a cool thing to see, like, Biff hold up his hand, and it starts, like, disappearing-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... in that shitty movie effect way.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Um, do you know they recorded, like, a, like, a, almost like... It, it's not like a blooper reel, but, like, bad shit that, like... At one point they go back to the Jurassic era.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, really?

Tim Fulton Yeah. They recor- they filmed it, but they didn't wanna pay to finish it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Was this when, uh, Eric what's-his-balls was in the-

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, okay.

Tim Fulton Eric, so Eric Stoltz was the-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... original Mar- excuse me. He wasn't the original Marty. He was the original one hired. They always wanted Michael J. Fox.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, they just couldn't work it out with family ties.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton I love where this has gone-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... at this point. Um, but-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Conversation

Tim Fulton ... no, it was, I think it was, 'cause they filmed two and three at the same time.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, and 'cause they wanted to make sure one was successful. And I think it's in the very back of, like, the film book, so I got to assume it was filmed concurrently with three and two basically. So...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Interesting.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.

Tim Fulton What other podcast questions do you have?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, do you have any other ideas for other podcasts?

Tim Fulton Well, I guess I could do a Back to the Future one. Um-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I'll produce it. Do you wanna do one together?

Tim Fulton Yeah, but how... I mean, what are you... Is that just a miniseries, though? I mean, fuck, I could... I mean, there are... I've... You know those stupid cube th- bookcases from IKEA?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton I have an entire square of, like, Back to the Future stuff.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Back to the Future stuff.

Tim Fulton Like, there's the cartoon series, there's the, the comic book, actually.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton It's a graphic novel that came out with alternate stories that Bob Gale, who's-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) The ori- yeah

Tim Fulton ... one of the original writers, is really good, which actually really addresses a lot of modern-day, uh, ideas-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Hmm

Tim Fulton ... of, like, why is an old man hanging out with a teenage boy? Uh, important question.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Totally valid question.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah, I'd do that, but how do I do it, like, I do, like, a four-hour... 'Cause you... That's an interesting question, 'cause I always mine are... When you listen to it, you're listening to-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... essentially real time, one interview. I'm not, like, blocking or anything.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There's, um, there's... I mean, there's different ways you could go about it. You could bring on guests that you know, have an... You could talk about, like, time travel for the most part with every guest, get their thoughts on it. You could do... There's a st-

Tim Fulton I love varying theories of time travel too.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) There's... I, um, I'm obsessed with it.

Tim Fulton So d- would you do, like, a season then?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. Yeah, you could do it seasonal. Or, you know, season-

Tim Fulton How do you feel about that, people that, like, issue a whole bunch of episodes all at the same time-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No

Tim Fulton ... like Netflix does?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Um, I mean, people wanna binge anyways. If they like the content, they wanna have more than, like, one episode at a time to do it.

Tim Fulton I've never done any podcast that's different from this format.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton So, fuck yeah, let's do it.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) 'Cause it... Well, there's others, uh, like Star Wars podca- I mean, Jesus, there's, like, so many Star Wars podcasts out there.

Tim Fulton Well, duh.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But, like-

Tim Fulton I mean, let's talk about the-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But there's one that-

Tim Fulton ... demographic of people that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's true, that like s-

Tim Fulton ... pays a couple hundred dollars for audio equipment, looking at your really nice Zoom right now. Uh, and, you know, wants to sit around. Maybe there's a beer, maybe there's not.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. It could be a once a month thing, and then... I, I like root beer. Uh, it could be a once a month thing, and then... But there's... You could do it, um, there's a Star Wars podcast called Star Wars Minute, where they watch a minute of the film-

Tim Fulton Oh

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... and dissect it.

Tim Fulton Is that worth it?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) No. But I'm just saying we have options.

Tim Fulton So it's like the most listened to episode, like, the first appearance of Jar Jar Binks-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... or that, what's the little furry thing that stayed-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Salas?

Tim Fulton Is that the thing that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, no

Tim Fulton ... just got introduced?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, uh, porgs.

Tim Fulton Porgs.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, the first time a porg shows up.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right. I know a guy, and, and I got to talk to him about the, uh, podcast festival, 'cause he gets, like, a lot of downloads for his podcast, but he's-

Tim Fulton We should have him

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... he's an Australian comedian who moved to LA. Um-

Tim Fulton He should come back.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton We'll buy his flight.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) He was... Yeah, he was at-

Tim Fulton We've got all that sweet sponsor money now

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... he was here for the wedding that I performed last year. Um, but he was talking about, um, like, all the guests that he has on, and he talks about, like... They do, like, reveal trailer episodes, so it's just like, "Hey, there's a new trailer out, we're gonna talk about it." You know what I mean? Like, there's-

Tim Fulton And so, like, the porg intro-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) That's right. Yeah

Tim Fulton ... like all the stuff that you-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... wouldn't see.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) He's also friends with somebody at Entertainment Weekly, so he gets, like, a lot of good guests.

Tim Fulton Those trailers are always better than... Like, I like Star Wars-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... but every time I watch one, I'm like, "Ah, I was duped into watching this- "... this fucking trope again."

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) He had a-

Tim Fulton Guy's gotta go and do something good, and it's gotta- ... and we're gonna get, you know, stopped at every turn, but somehow we're gonna make it through.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah. He had Ben Mendelsohn on, the guy that's in, he's in Rogue One. He's also in, um, Bloodline on it, on Netflix.

Tim Fulton Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, he's the older brother on that, so-

Tim Fulton Yeah

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... like, he's, he gets guests, so it's just-

Tim Fulton That's awesome

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... I gotta talk to him about it.

Tim Fulton Well, can he get a guest here, though?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I'm sure he could. So...

Tim Fulton And his podcast is on Star Wars?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton Okay, I'm done shit talking Star Wars podcasts.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Please come to the-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But yes, we could do

Tim Fulton ... Columbus Podcast Festival.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, do I have any more, as we're wrapping up, um, do you have any, like, future plans for the show? Anything special?

Tim Fulton Um, again, just sort of getting back into, uh... You know, I'm committed to myself, obviously. I was gonna mention earlier when you saying like, "Oh, I deleted two episodes," because th- that whole story sounded like you are doing really well hel- holding yourself accountable-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, yeah

Tim Fulton ... to, like, get this shit out.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, frankly, uh, uh, I'll make a commitment to your listeners to be- ... sl- you know, more accountable.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton Uh, but also sort of striving a little bit harder to, um, not just... I'll go ahead and we're deep enough in, just don't put it in the show notes. You know, GCAC is a sponsor of my podcast, and so they sort of, uh, they don't dictate, but one epis- the one episode I gotta get out every month is one of their featured artists.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And they're great interviews.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, but I think there's a lot of stories to be told about, uh, the neighborhoods of Columbus, um, about, you know, a deeper dive into some of the, the political things that are happening, you know, conversations surrounding the powers that be that everybody talks about but they don't really know. Um, and a lot of, you know, conversations about tax abatements, and, you know, is city council f- you know, messing things up? I don't really think so. I think that, you know, the school board has a lot of accountability there. Um, I think there... I wanna do better of I wanna do bet- a better job of actually contributing to the discourse rather than, uh, first of all, fulfilling my sponsor responsibility, but also, uh, not just having the cool kids on. Um, and bringing the audience to bear, uh, to have those discussions. So...

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Do you consider yourself, like, a journalist in that aspect, or...?

Tim Fulton I do to an extent, but I, um... 'Cause it's, again, it's interview based.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton It's not me like, "Hey-"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton "... what do you think about Star Wars?"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton It's, uh

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Sorry.

Tim Fulton Which there's nothing wrong with. Which there's nothing wrong with that. There's a, a lot of value in that. I do consider my jour- myself a journalist in, insofar as a, uh, somebody who hosts a half hour on CNN every Saturday does.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice. Yeah.

Tim Fulton Like, they kinda know what they're gonna hear, I know what I'm gonna hear. I'm not very surprised. I'm super excited when news breaks-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... on my podcast. But, uh, it's gonna be hell or high water before somebody cites the Confluence Cast w- as where news broke.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton You know what I mean?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, I would love for, if you wanna break news, come on the Con- Confluence Cast.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton I'll make a... Yeah. But I also have to edit it within two weeks-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right.

Tim Fulton ... to get it out. Also, I'm super anal about editing.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, are you?

Tim Fulton Like, I edit it to the extent that an NPR interview is edited. Like, uhs are out, extended-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, really?

Tim Fulton ... extended pauses that don't lend any weight.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton See what I did there?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton That don't lend any weight to the conversation.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, I'll cut 'em out. 'Cause I wanna s- I, first of all, I wanna sound smart. And two-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You want your guests to sound good

Tim Fulton ... I want my s- guests to sound smart and good-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... as well so that frankly they share it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... and they're proud of it. Um, 'cause that, you know, some of this is about ego as well.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I get it.

Tim Fulton But yeah, it's to an extent a journalist, yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Do you feel like... I don't know, I used to do that in the beginning with editing podcasts where I was, like, super paranoid about, you know, watching the, watching the file, and you just see those gaps in between. I'm like, "Gotta get rid of that. Gotta get rid of that." I feel like the more-

Tim Fulton Well, you live listen to it when you edit it, right?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) But I feel like the more I touch it, it's the same thing with, like, when we build machines, the more, like, separate connections we have for, like, wires, the more problems there are for something to come up.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) The more troubleshooting there is. So the more edits I do, the more cuts I'm doing, there's a bigger chance for it to sound... You notice a bad edit.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) You never, you never notice a good edit. You know what I mean?

Tim Fulton I mean, I always-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Like, it's one of those-

Tim Fulton I am al- I always clip it. It's set, not by default, I have to set it every time I edit, but it's set to, um, uh, ripple edit.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay.

Tim Fulton All tracks.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Um, so it's just basically, like, the part I cut, the other parts come together around it. Um, and I always listen to it again, and sometimes, you know, I fuck up, I cut myself off or cut somebody else off.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton But it's also a graphic interface and, I mean, if somebody wants to give me feedback and say that I'm over-editing it, it sounds like , I'm, you know- To... No. Like, if it sounds like that, tell me, but I don't think it does-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Okay

Tim Fulton ... from what I've listened to. Uh, but I actually haven't had that experience. You should use, uh, Reaper.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, I think I might. I wanna dabble in it. That's the only-

Tim Fulton It's r- it's super easy. I mean, I've paid for the premium. It's not a premium version.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's, like, 60 bucks or something like that?

Tim Fulton Yeah, but it's not renewing, and, like, I literally just feel like, "Oh, I've been using it for this long. I should-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... pay for what I'm using." And also I don't have to wait 10 seconds every time I open it-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... for s- to say still evaluating.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I, uh, I've been using GarageBand 6.0 since I started. I got that MacBook.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It came with GarageBand 10 or whatever.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I put 6.0 back on it.

Tim Fulton Can you do that?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Oh.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Can I just get that in the App Store?

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Uh, I had to copy 6.0 from my old MacBook-

Tim Fulton I learned, so I have that-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) ... onto a hard dri- yeah

Tim Fulton ... my old MacBook still.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton He's looking at my new MacBook.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Uh, my-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) We have the same MacBook

Tim Fulton ... old MacBook, I edit with that o-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... or rather I do my final mixdown in that one-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah

Tim Fulton ... 'cause it has the old GarageBand.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah, and it has that compression file, and it has-

Tim Fulton Yes.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's so good. The new one doesn't have it. So yeah, you can... So what I did-

Tim Fulton Because it wants you to buy whatever that's called.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Final Cut, or not Final Cut. What-

Tim Fulton The audio-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Whatever their audio version

Tim Fulton ... the audio equivalent of Final Cut.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So I have a, like, a network drive at home.

Tim Fulton Mm-hmm.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I just dropped it in the network thing. It copied all of that GarageBand version over to my network folder, and then on the new MacBook, I just drag that and put it in my apps.

Tim Fulton Basically copied it to your apps.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yep.

Tim Fulton I'll do that.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton Cool.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) So makes compression a lot easier. Uh, last question.

Tim Fulton Yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Favorite moment, uh, from podcasting?

Tim Fulton Uh, I was gonna say earlier that some of the worst podcasts are the ones where, like, people just go on and on about whatever they're promoting, and I hate it. Um, I was s- I've been s... I'm just gonna say, like, the type of episode-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton ... um, is the ones that, uh, I get feedback on where it's something that I gave a shit about too. Um, I launched both, uh, both the 61 Forecast and Confluence Cast with a roundup of candidates for office, and that's a lot of work.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Oh, yeah.

Tim Fulton Coordinating all the interviews, letting ev- and it's a lot of w- I was talking about the worst episodes are the ones where people just go on and on. Talk about a politician.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And then also sort of boiling it down and giving everybody equal time.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Yeah.

Tim Fulton And without giving... I'm not gonna say to them, "Hey, this is what I boiled our 45 minutes of-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton ... down to five minutes, and this is what I think is important-"

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Right

Tim Fulton "... what I said." Uh- You know, I do put the full interview online as well. Um, but it's doing the stuff that, like, matters to people and, like, actually that I get feedback on. Like, that's feels good.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Feels good. Nice.

Tim Fulton So, yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Cool. Uh, any other plugs? Where can people find it or, or find you?

Tim Fulton Uh, the-con, theconfluencecast.com, timfulton.com, columbusunderground.com. You don't, there's nothing on timfulton.com. I mean, I own it. Uh, but-

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) It's just a Back to the Future fan site

Tim Fulton ... No, it's just my LinkedIn bio- ... phrased differently. Uh, but yeah, just theconfluencecast.com. And, uh, this is the plug for C- uh, Columbus Podcast Festival as well.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) 2019, baby.

Tim Fulton 2019. All in. Signing contracts.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Whoo. Getting it. All right. Well, thank you for being on.

Tim Fulton Thanks, Billy.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) I had a pleasure.

Tim Fulton No, this was great.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Can't wait till we do our Back to the Future podcast.

Tim Fulton Fuck yeah.

Billy (Sounds of Bustown host) Nice.

Tim Fulton Thank you for listening to The Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Quick side note, uh, Billy and I did end up starting a pop culture time travel podcast after we recorded our interview. You can hear that at outatim.com. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite podcaster. If you're interested in sponsoring The Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.