I love audio. As a child, I had difficulty getting into books until I discovered audiobooks or books on tape at the time. I remember the first one well, it was A Brief History of time by Stephen Hawking -Unabridged and read by Michael Jackson (not the singer). I would listen to that book every night until I fully comprehended it. So a long time.
From there I discovered talk radio. I was hooked on The Larry King radio show. My parents wouldn’t let me stay up late to listen, so I rigged up a “pillow speaker” with a long cord, and I got away with it (I think). They never figured out why I was always so tired in the morning. It was mono, but most things were then.
With my first Sony Walkman STEREO radio, I thought the future had finally arrived. I remember it well. I was with my parents in a Sears in the mall and I tried on the foam and aluminum headphones. This stereo sound was the closest thing to virtual reality I had ever experienced. It must have been NPR or some classical station. I literally felt like I was in the middle of an orchestra. What magic be this, I thought? From then on my Walkman and I were inseparable. That gray/silver plastic and those orange foam headphones became part of me.
I then started my obsession with OTR or Old Time Radio. If you don’t know, they are the recordings of the live radio shows comedy, mystery, science fiction, and drama that started in the early 20th century that still are around today. Some of my favorites are The Burns & Allen Show, Jack Benny, Box 13, Rocky Fortune, and X Minus One. The beautiful thing about OTR is there is more content available than a person can listen to in a lifetime, and they are mostly public license. They were podcasts for me, before podcasts.
Audio is a format like no other. Like reading, you have to use your imagination, but not as much. Audio is my passion, and now my job.
My fandoms include but are not limited to Star Trek (I have my own Star Trek blog) Quantum Leap, Alien, time travel, X-Files, Back To The Future, Firefly, french movies starring Audrey Tautou, retro tech, dead media formats, movies, Kevin Smith, romantic comedies, and old stuff most people have never heard of.
I love TOTLB and I’m grateful that I was asked to contribute here. From time to time I’ll pop up with a post about something new and geeky or maybe some old guy S#!T, absolutely a lot of pop culture stuff.
“When you can’t run, you crawl, and when you can’t crawl – when you can’t do that…
You find someone to carry you.”
-Joss Whedon & Tim Minear
<3 Albie
20170511CE
For more about Albie check out his blog at http://albie.ws/
