Adventures in Podcasting

(Editor's note: This was originally posted on Saturday, August 31st, 2013. Written by Big Rudy.)


My name is Rudy. One day my two brothers and I decided to do a podcast...and then the craziness started.

You see, when I came up with this idea, I was thinking that at the very least, it was something to DO. I'm married, have two beautiful children, am on the wrong side of 30, live in the suburbs on a cul de sac. People like me shouldn't be putting out content like "who would win in a fight? Clinton or JFK?" I'm not supposed to do that sort of thing. I should be skipping work and golfing or something, not discussing tv shows that happened 20 plus years ago or talking about heroin overdoses that I witness in a parking lot on a Friday morning. I'm not supposed to, but I do.

What went wrong? What the hell happened here? I opened Pandora's Box and threw a Hail Mary and used the Contra Code at all the same time and it started to slip away. My brothers are extremely talented and funny. Superstar MC and Danny Blow are creative A type personalities. Damn near everyone of our friends that we've brought on has been a home run. This wasn't supposed to be this easy. The hard work was figuring out how to get this stuff on the internet. I've been waiting for us to stink a show up, to put something out so horrible that I would shake my head and quit talking forever. But it hasn't happened. It's only gotten better. I've only been doing this for two months! Don't I have to pay my dues to get this good? Short answer: NO.

I was asked by Katie (Caputa's ladyfriend that appeared on HuSTLe City's Guide to More Pro Wrestling) "What's a podcast?" My reply? "It's like a radio show that nobody listens to." I think I was pretty accurate with that response. My friend Rick Lewis, who is the chef at an excellent restaurant named Quincy St. Bistro in South St. Louis asked me, "What do you guys talk about?" My reply? "Nonsense." I was very accurate with that one too. But it is more than that. It's something that is as funny and wonderful and creative as anything that I've been a part of. It's a show about friends who like to LAUGH. It's about not taking a damn thing too seriously because in the end, what are the things you remember that get you through the rough times? Is it the time you got your ass beat? Or the time you got laid off because your company decided to ship some jobs overseas? Or the time you had your heart broken? No, it's the times you sat with your buddies and someone said something so funny you were still laughing when you woke up the next morning. That's what the HuSTLe City Podcast is about.

My insecurities are still there. My fear of putting my name on something that sucks. My fear of just not being good enough. They all linger but they have faded. I used to listed to AM/FM radio for ten hours a day while rolling around HuSTLe City. The good shows aren't there anymore except for the Morning After on 920 AM. Gone are the Howard Sterns, the sports talk shows that actually had opinions, the DJs that actually said something ENTERTAINING. All that is left are yesmen, whores, and dummies. It's a crying shame. Corporations that don't understand entertainment at all are putting this crap on the air and they wonder why the money is disappearing. Huh. Whenever I feel like I'm not good enough, I put the radio on for fifteen minutes (or as long as I can tolerate) and after that, I feel like I'm the greatest audio personality in the world and my crew is pound for pound the best in podcasting.

So it is an adventure. It's exciting, it's full of surprises, it's audio pandemonium. And it's as real and lassiez-faire as anything on the radio or television today. (F in French Mrs. G? Eat my ass.) Hustle on hustlers.