Jenn & Trin Do Friendship at the Problems

Welcome Jenn & Trin to WWdN! They kindly answered some questions written by Will Hindmarch, made up just to share with us while Wil Wheaton is at sea. Their friendship is the genuine best.

Jenn & Trin are the community & event directors behind Cards Against Humanity. They co-host a podcast called Friendshipping, a weekly discussion about friendship and mental health. Every week they answer audience questions, like “How do I stop feeling jealous of successful friends?” or “What if I have a crush on my BFF?” or “Should I ask my friend why she unfollowed me on Twitter?”

Will Hindmarch caught up with them via some of the communications technologies that are so popular right now and asked them a few questions about podcasting and friendships and windjammers…

Q: If you were to describe your podcast to someone who is not a friend of yours, perhaps someone sitting next to you on an airplane, how would you describe it — and where would each of you be likely to help move the conversation thereafter?

Trin: I recently spoke with a woman who told me that she goes on annual cruises with her friends of 30, maybe 40 years. I told her that her story was especially interesting to me because I care so much and so deeply about friendship that I record myself and my good friend Jenn talking about it every week, and we put it on the Internet. That’s the crux of it for me – we just truly give a shit. If I were trying to get someone to listen to the podcast, I guess I’d tell them that it’s two women giggling and complimenting each other for 20 minutes, and they eventually give people advice on being a more empathetic person and better friend.

Jenn: Friendshipping is what I needed when I was younger. I wasn’t a particularly good friend, and I thought I was doomed to feel that way. But that’s not true! No one is doomed. It turns out, friendship is actually a skill and you can improve at it. No one’s a perfect friend, but you can improve. So our podcast is for anyone who wants to make new friends, or strengthen their current relationships. Plus, it’s an excuse for me to hang out and talk with Trin for an hour on Monday mornings. We have to cut out about 40 minutes of our giggling. Trin literally makes me cry of laughter before I’ve even had coffee. Best way to start the week.

Q: What’s the secret origin of Friendshipping and/or its theme song?

Trin: We asked our friend Molly Lewis to write a song that could be anything as long as it was very short and included “Do friendship at the problem.” We trusted her entirely and we were not disappointed!

Jenn: Molly is a genius.

Q: What’s the bold future of Friendshipping as/or beyond a podcast?

Trin: We’ve long considered branching out into other projects! Right now we hold friendship advice panels at the PAX conventions called Making Friends in Geek Spaces. Our 50th episode is going to drop in a few weeks, so we’re old pros at this stuff. Now’s the time to experiment.

Continue reading… →

Guest Post by Will Hindmarch: Written Word, Spoken Word

Writer, designer, and producer Will Hindmarch (@wordwill) wrote about games and storytelling for Jeff VanderMeer‘s marvelous writing guide, Wonderbook.

Almost twenty years ago, while I was in high school, I hosted a community radio show called The Difference Engine. I played a strange mix of genres and spoken-word tracks that amused me. Weezer’s original blue album was new, back then, and I played it alongside current mega-hits by NIN, local Chicago bands like The Drovers, jazz classics from Louis Armstrong, and the occasional monologue excerpt by Henry Rollins or whoever, hand-bleeped in real time by me to keep us from getting nasty mail.

As a community-radio DJ and a community-theater actor/director/techie, I’d had some light vocal training, which served me well while I was alone in the booth with the mic, producing my own show. All the joys of having a soapbox and a mixtape, an audience and a mic, with none of the eyeballs or lenses staring back. Good stuff.

This past month, when I set out to produce and record the audiobook for my new poetry collection—Pregrets—all those memories, all that training fell away like a floor. I was here and they were over there, across a chasm of time, rusty from the sweat I’d left on them and the care I hadn’t taken to maintain them. As I sat, trying to edit the audio I’d recorded at home of me reading my own poems, I discovered something: I’d forgotten how to pace, how to pause, how to breathe—but not how to spot all those errors and recognize the genuine lousiness of my recordings.

Yikes.

Inside the sound of my own voice, reading my own words, is a terrible dread that rots the pillars of the pier and drops me in the saltwater.

All of it’s exacerbated by the dreaded art of comparison—of weighing my work against others. While recording my poems, I studied readings by Billy Collins, by Mary Robinette Kowal, by Henry Rollins, and discouraged myself right the hell out.

Reading my own work felt like it was sucking the life—the many different possible readings—right out of some poems. Pregrets is all about how the line breaks mislead, revise, question, and doubt. My readings felt like they put the kibosh on all that, saying “This is how this poem’s supposed to be read.” Which is, pardon me, bullshit in this case.

In contrast, I think back to the lovely, atmospheric podcast series called PleasureTown (on SoundCloud, too), and the first time I heard the story I wrote for the ninth episode of its first season.

Inside the sound of strangers’ voices, reading my own words, resides a peculiar magic. They imbued those words with so much, enriched them, opening them up for lots of wonderful characterization — and interpretation. Voices and words, like winds and kites. Words can lift up and be lifted, all at once … if you handle them right.

So I’m going to get past it, work through it, finish that audiobook (for the sake of the two people who want it made), not so much in spite of it being difficult … but because it’s difficult. I want to be good at this, better than I was back when, and see what I can make next with what I learn.

Onward.

(PleasureTown is a transmedia collection of short tales and linked characters set in a sordid town of hedonist-philosophers in the early 20th century. Season 2 of the podcast launches May 6th with 12 new episodes produced by my friends, Keith Ecker and Erin Kahoa. Even now, new minisodes are rolling out, written by fans and podcasters from Reading Out Loud.)

Memories of the Futurecast: Episode Two

Having clawed my way far enough out of fevertown to think and speak (mostly) clearly, I decided to take advantage of the lull in construction next door and record this week's Memories of the Futurecast.

Memories of the Future, Volume One, covers the first 13 episodes of TNG, so each week, I'm choosing something from one episode, and performing an excerpt for you. It will mostly be from the synopses, which is where I think the real humor of the book lives, but from time to time, I may work in some things from the other parts.

Two important things:

This does not mean the book comes out in 13 weeks. It comes out much sooner than that.
These are not excerpted from an audiobook. These are recorded specifically for this podcast. I'm not sure if I'll do a full-length audiobook, yet, but I'm open to the idea.

Episode Notes:

The Memories of the Futurecast works hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag. You have been warned.
I'm not 100% today, and as a result, the podcast isn't 100%, but someday we'll all look back on this and laugh as we flee the planet in a space ship.
This week's theme music is used under Creative Commons license from the incredible Coconut Monkeyrocket. You can get the whole thing yourself, as well as a mountain of awesome music, at Comfortstand Records dot Com.
Memories of the Futurecast Episode One contains excerpts from the synopsis of Encounter at Farpoint, (Part 2), and Behind the Scenes Memories.
This week's episode is twice as long as last week's, and comes in at just over 18 minutes long.
Memories of the Futurecast Episode Two weighs in at 8.7MB.
Memories of the Futurecast will eat up all your crackers and your licorice.
Memories of the Futurecast has Improved Initiative.

Download Memories of the futurecast episode 2

Memories of the Futurecast: Episode One

Holy Crap, I'm doing a weekly podcast again! Welcome to Memories of the Futurecast!

This is going to be fun and awesome: Memories of the Future, Volume One, covers the first 13 episodes of TNG, so each week, I'm going choose something from one episode, and perform an excerpt for you. It will mostly be from the synopses, which is where I think the real humor of the book lives, but from time to time, I may work in some things from the other parts.

Two important things:

This does not mean the book comes out in 13 weeks. It comes out much sooner than that.
These are not excerpted from an audiobook. These are recorded specifically for this podcast. I'm not sure if I'll do a full-length audiobook, yet, but I'm open to the idea.

Episode Notes:

The Memories of the Futurecast works hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag. You have been warned.
Memories of the Futurecast Episode One contains an excerpt from the synopsis of Encounter at Farpoint, (Part 1).
This week's episode is exactly 9 minutes long. I considered holding it until 9/9/09, but I was afraid the resulting mathematical nine-ness of the whole thing would be, well, a goocher.
Memories of the Futurecast Episode One weighs in at 9.2MB

Download Memories of the Futurecast, Episode One.

in which bad golf is played and news items are discussed

Last week, I took Nolan to the 3 par golf course I played on all the time as a teenager for a round of what we call Bad Golf.

The rules of Bad Golf are pretty simple:

1. If you completely blow it on a shot, you get an automatic do-over, no penalty.

2. If you miss the cup by a distance equal to or less than the head on your putter, you count it as "in the hole", so long as you shout, "it's in the hole!"

3. If you somehow hit a squirrel (unintentionally) you automatically win the round.

4. Once a round, you can call "that was totally bullshit" and have a do-over.

5. You must quote Caddyshack whenever appropriate.

These rules were built by me and my friend Kevin when we were in our early 20s, because we loved golf, but were truly horrible at the actual playing of it. They worked out well for us, because they forced us to not take the game too seriously, and gave us a number of excuses to have fun, even when we were playing poorly (which was always.)

This was the first time Nolan or I had picked up a club since the last time we played on this course three years ago, when Nolan was still shorter than me. We played the front 9, invoked Rules 1 and 2 a few times, and had a blast. I shot 37 because I am the master of the four-putt, and Nolan shot 40 because he's taller and stronger than he was last time we played, and even trying to take it easy with his pitching wedge, he was flying over most of the greens. Like everything I do with my kids, though, it wasn't about the score of the game as much as it was about the time spent playing it.

On the way home, I saw a lot of signs around the golf course that pointed to a website called SaveTheGolfCourse.org. When I got home, I looked it up and was horrified to discover that a dirtbag developer is trying to destroy the Verdugo Hills Golf Course and build 320 condos on the land. A lot of residents are fighting it, and I hope they win. I love that place, it's a real treasure for everyone who lives in Sunland, Tujunga, and La Crescenta, and the last thing that area needs is more condos.

And now, various items for your Sunday reading, starting with some book-related things:

I have the final cover for Memories of the Future Volume One, and I'll be posting it next week. Yes, this means that the official release date is right around the corner.

I think I'm bringing a limited-edition chapbook to PAX. If I can get it all together, it will be a short fiction collection, including unpublished stories that I'm pretty sure don't suck.

Jim C. Hines, author of the wonderful book Goblin Quest, read Just A Geek and wrote some extraordinarily kind things about me and my book in his blog.

My columns at Suicide Girls and the LA Weekly, which have been on summer vacation, will be starting up again next month.

For the last two weeks, I've been jogging just a little bit every day, so I can get my skeleton and muscles used to the idea of me doing more physical activity than just sitting at my desk and writing (remember, I've resolved to play ice hockey again before the year is out, and with just four months left, I'm running out of time.) I take my iPod with me and listen to podcasts while I'm out, and I wanted to point out two recent episodes that I enjoyed: From Escape Pod, Carthago Delenda Est and from Stuff You Should Know, The Necronomicon.

Back in March, I posted about the debut of my friend Ed's webseries, Angel of Death:

Angel of Death stars Zoe Bell (who you've seen double all kinds of people, but probably didn't know it. She also spent much of Death Proof
riding around on the hood of a car being awesome) as an assassin who
"gets stabbed through the skull; she survives, but the head injury
leaves her with an awkward side effect: She
suddenly develops a conscience."

Though Angel of Death was originally released as an episodic webseries, I guess they always intended to eventually release it as a feature film, and last night, Nolan and I finally got to watch that version on DVD. It looks and sounds great, and the story plays even better on TV than it did in my browser. If you liked Kill Bill, Grindhouse, or Sin City, I think you'll like Angel of Death.

I came across a blog called Study Hacks (via Reddit) that is worth a look, especially if you're a student.

As it turns out, I'm all over the damn place next week: Season 3 of The Guild premieres on Xbox Live on Tuesday the 25th, my episode of Leverage airs on Wednesday the 26th, and the newest D&D Penny Arcade Podcast begins on Friday the 28th.