Raising your Podcast: A Guide for the Expectant, Expecting, and Expectorating

Congratulations! If you've found your way to this guide, chances are your ankles are swollen, your appetite for content has increased three fold, and your baby bump has grown resentful toward you for hijacking its social media presence. However, this is not merely a primer for those expecting a little aural miracle. Regardless of your relationship, whether you're planning your first baby shower or a euthanasia sponge bath jamboree, every parent should be acquainted with the critical phases in the life of their podcast. 

Conception - The miracle of birth. Begetting your podcast can be a messy business. Just like a real pregnancy, there are all manner of slimy complications. By this point, the idea of your podcast has been gestating for a solid 20 to 30 minutes. In that time most podcasts reach full maturity in the womb of the mind. Don't fret, however, if your digital dumpling is not yet ready to come to term. Some may incubate for periods as long as four hours before they are fully cooked, so to speak. You should recognize your podcast is ready to breach by a searing pain in your head, hot flashes, and apoplectic fits of self-loathing. If you feel any of these symptoms you should immediately find a cold dark sound studio in which to relax. Throw down some towels and, if possible, have your partner/co-host with you to act as a doula of sorts. Breath deeply and let your podcast find it's preferred orifice from which to emerge. In most cases this is the mouth, but the anus is also a fairly common breach point. Once it has chosen it's exit, you will experience intense pain and milky discharge from that orifice. Do not worry, it will pass once your podcast has emerged. 95% of podcasts will come to term in this fashion without complication. However, in the rare instance of a problem, seek assistance on the internet immediately. You may need a C-section or the help of an experienced audio engineer.

Infancy - With the trauma of birth behind you, you now face the most formative period of your podcast's life. It is crucial that during this stage you provide your progeny with everything it will need to become a high functioning and up standing member of society, that is to say being eminently clickable. Surround your podcast with stimulating influences, such as zany sound effects and gimmick guest stars. Don't be afraid to be experimental with your impressionable little guy. Musical interlude? Why not! Moment of silence for a trite cause? Hell yeah! A gag where you ask a guest to interpret confusing pop lyrics? I guess so! Try messing with the schedule to find what works best you, whether that's every Tuesday and Sunday at 4 A.M., or every quarter. Once you know your routine stick to it! A regular schedule is critical to the development of your podcast.

This can be a notoriously tough time for parents. Your podcast will be growing rapidly and it can be hard to adjust to the changes. Your youngster may become temperamental, wanton, and/or incontinent. This is only natural, though. Grin, bear it, and make sure your podcast's comment section is well supervised. If you're interested in learning more on this phase of development, look into a book on psychoanalysis (I recommend Civilization and Its Content). Whatever Freud whiffed on with human psychology, he nailed with podcasts. Worst case, you'll better understand what the critics mean when they say your spawn is "an anally-fixated hysteric with a death driven castration complex." You should also consider exposing your podcast to a wider audience at this point. Your friends and family have been supportive, but your podcast needs to get out and run. Try going to a meet-up of other parents with young podcasts. Talk to them. Set up a play date or offer to guest star on their show. Socializing your podcast properly is of the utmost importance, especially if you're aiming to get your offspring into one of the more prestigious academies, such as Earwolf or NPR.

Adolescence - By now your ankle-biter should have developed a bit of a sense of self. Maybe it likes eating its own boogers, or uses a catch phrase, or prank calls local minority-owned businesses. You should let your podcast have fun and grow, but don't leave it directionless. Without your guidance, there are a number of pitfalls to which it might fall prey. As a wise man once said, "Idle microphones are the devil's platitude." A hands-off and carefree parent might find their podcast sliding into indolence, or, worse still, taking up with the wrong crowd. If you see your podcast falling in with the likes of any of these plan an intervention immediately: conservative talk radio, politics in general, D-level comedian concept casts, pop culture criticism, Terry Gross, niche niche and niche niche niche nerd topics, sports, inspirational auto fellatio casts, or internet street toughs of any sort. Any of these influences may corrupt your podcast, turning it into a shrill and ungrateful shit. Instead, offer your podcast gently but prodding advice. Don't be afraid to discipline it if it gets unruly. Just remember, if traditional forms of punishment don't work, it is totally acceptable to emotionally manipulate your podcast. Say things like "My love IS conditional." or "I'm not angry, just disappointed...disappointed in the colloquial sense of stomach-churning, boner-killing hatred."

Puberty - Fuck this. Good luck.

College - The fortunate among you have survived puberty and the transition to adulthood without your podcast experiencing an unwanted pregnancy or a developing debilitating personality trait. Regardless of how you've handled parenting up to this point, you're going to have to relinquish some control now, whether that means guest hosts, gratuitous ad spots, or fan requested episodes (shudders). Acknowledge your podcast's independence with a underwhelming and utilitarian gift, like toilet paper or a tire iron. This not only stresses your expectation for them to stand on their own, but also your growing callousness to their misfortune. Many parents feel lonely at this stage, consumed by the emptiness of knowing that the only thing that gave their miserable lives meaning was wiping the ass of their ill conceived rug rat. The more graceful parents will take pride in the growth of their podcast, watching from a distance at it gains followers and perhaps critical acclaim (read scrutiny). No matter where you lie on the spectrum, you should consider finding a hobby for yourself to fill the void. One Gallup poll finds that the parents found extra marital affairs the most fulfilling way to spend their time once their podcast had gone off to college. Test the shame infested waters of adultery and try not to get knocked up with another aural whippersnapper.

Adulthood - The most boring phase. Your podcast has become the petty, uptight bastard you had always feared, a stark and horrible reflection of the blackness in your own soul. In all likelihood, it is set in its career path of destruction, unwilling or unable to change despite feedback from friends and listeners. There's really no hope of changing things now, merely accept what little control you have. If your relationship is friendly, treat it as you would any middle-aged pal. Indulge in a riverboat-themed episode where you talk about car insurance, past foibles, and the bleakness of your respective futures while you both imbibe just a little too much Chardonnay. If, by this point, you've disowned your podcast or been disowned (mutual disowning is also not unheard of), have a go at a reconciliation. Lure it into supposedly neutral territory with the promise of new microphones or a live episode at sidewalk art fair, then hit it with everything you've got. Remember, guilt, as always, is the primary weapon in your arsenal.
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Old Age - The old codger. What a life its had. Chances are by now, most of your podcast's episodes are clips shows or nostalgic drives down memory lane. That's all well and good, just don't let your podcast double park. Despite its obdurate insistence to the contrary, it is most definitely time to urge your podcast toward retirement. This can be a tricky business, many are so inveterate and ornery that they won't listen to you. Try using a megaphone or threaten to move it into a retirement community. If that doesn't work, bring out the big guns. Buy a tombstone and a shovel. Make casual references to the soil types in your backyard and how you've always considered velvet lining a little excessive. Why not just use low thread count sheets? It should get the hint. It is also important to make sure all its affairs are in order. Many podcasts prefer a celebrity to read their living will. Find someone on the cheap or pay a decent impersonator to mollify the old coot. The subjects of funeral and interment can be even more touchy, sending your podcast into a bout of witty banter that is a testament to senility everywhere. Don't be bullied by pathetic attempts to appeal to your sympathy. Stick to your guns and low-ball.

Death - The end of the road. Comfort your podcast in it's dying moments. Remind it how it has led a fulfilling life and brought joy to tens of people on the internet or maybe even a lonely guy in a car. As it reaches the end, try turning down the gain to muffle its death rattle. Put slip covers over its microphones and wish your phonic fogie a tormented afterlife eternally fettered in a digital hell devoid of absolution.

Realidades

Nothing could have been more lascivious. The marketplace teemed with the energy of an ancient agora, vendors flaunting their wares as if prostitutes. Mendicants derelict and deprived of all their humanity clawed at passersby, their reptilian talons and metallic hooks reaching out to snatch unaware souls. The market itself seemed to transform before him, the narrow passages and causeways turning back on themselves without creating a loop, an ever expanding network of veins that never returned to the heart. Did they even begin there? It was a psychomanteum constructed either by a mad genius or school of possessed children. Borgaucho gripped the rail. From his vantage above the market he was safe, but he knew he could not remain there. He had errands to run, vegetables to purchase for a paella he would be making later that night, a dish to stoke the fires of a blossoming affair. He collected himself and cautiously made his way to the market.

Sifting through the endless menagerie of goods, he kept his gaze down toward his feet fearful lest he provoke the ire of an overzealous salesmen, or worse a colleague from the newspaper. Souls flew about him fitfully, forgotten and imprisoned in this labyrinth. He must be quick or he might end up like them. Borgaucho
stopped at a vegetable stand and examined the goods (term). Collectively, the assembled veggies told a gruesome tale of life. Some were young and vibrant, yet cried out in pain, stripped from their homes and bewailing their fate. Others were old, decrepit and diseased, moaning as they slid into liquid putrefaction.
Borgaucho hesitated here. The wrong choice could be disastrous. An ill-curated vegetable could wreck his meal, like hiring a deranged captain for a exploratory voyage. His hand hovered over a certain yucca root.

He stared at the thing. It was strange, the textures seemed more vibrant and violent than the other produce. He gasped. The root rippled with anticipation and from its cracked brown exterior pearlescent eyes appeared and the sliver of a mouth. It spoke to him, "Borgaucho, I am Gneb-Thoff, sorcerer king to an ancient people. A demon destroyed our civilization, but I transferred my life force into the earth. I have lived thousands of years waiting for this moment to find you. With your help I can...Wait! Where are you going?!" Borgaucho had grabbed two tomatoes, threw his currency at the proprietor, and left. He knew better than to
trust a talking yucca.

The journey home was perilous. He thought himself a more timid Ulysses, avoiding danger not through sharpness of mind or might, but fleetness of foot. Sirens, monsters, tricksters, and thugs all waited for him to slip up. Through shadow into light then back to shadow as the situation dictated, Borgaucho made his way
harried by unknown forces. Returning home, he slammed the door behind him. He pressed his back up against the wood as if to brace the entryway. He had survived another outing, but how long before he must venture forth again?

He trudged to the kitchen and set down his tomatoes. A newspaper fluttered on his desk, animated, possibly, by the spirit of a restless soul. He flinched as he picked it up and help it as far from his person
as his eyes would allow to see. Saturday May 17, 1958! Eight days had lapsed without his knowledge. He had missed his date, but where had he been?! Borgaucho felt his pulse. It was irregular, alternating long and short in elaborate sequence. Perhaps he had been drugged? He imagined his consciousness adrift in a fugue those eight days. No, it couldn't be. His blood pumped with meaning as if he were a carrier, some unaware host. A code! But sent by whom and containing what information? He needed a cipher.

Thank goodness he was a certified amateur cryptographer. He rushed to his code breaking kit. Scribbling out the intricate code as he felt he pulse, Borgaucho began to see. The code appeared a conversation, two different voices conspiring in an inhuman tongue. Whether demons conspiring or para-dimensional teenagers being homophobic, he could not be sure. It was indecipherable. Changing tactics, he entered the library of his memory in an attempt to recall when this might have befallen him. Stacks upon stacks wending about led him deeper and deeper until he came upon a geodesic dome of tomes. He stepped in and plucked a book from the structure...one of his more repressed high school memories. Quickly he put it back. It was then he decided to leave the library dwelling upon the tired maxim of the fallibility of memory, that and the librarian had demanded he depart for being too loud.

Borgaucho came to lying face up on his half twin mattress. He reasoned that no succubus could share a bed so small, thus he endured restive nights on his over-sized crib. The ceiling fan whirred above him, the blades creating in their wake a strange ripple. Borgaucho strained his eyes. Between the blades he saw another world horrible and fantastic: creatures abounding in vestigial limbs limping about and arraigning their ineffectual members in wretched boutiques, cityscapes built downward into nacreous sediment, the structures constantly shifting, collapsing, bringing ignominious death to their denizens. In disgust he stared as the extra-dimensional equivalent of Little Italy was subsumed in a structural swoon.

He shook his head. Why were all the alternate realities to which he was privy filled with monsters, idiots, and journalists? This was getting tiresome. Borgaucho stood up and rubbed the crust from his eyes. The flakes spiraled down and landed on his arm. Each fleck bloomed into a flower and then withered in decay, leaving
a putrefied dot on his flesh. He took no heed and made his way to the kitchen. Among the rotting victuals he choose to make his paella anyway, just in case his date should arrive. He laid out the tomatoes from the market and produced a kitchen knife. What once had been a steel now was stone, the cutlass itself less of a knife and more epee inscribed with symbols. It was terrible for cutting really, but he had no choice. With tremendous effort he diced the tomatoes. As if infused by the vivifying blood of the fruit, the blade gleamed and hummed with a near inaudible incantation. It seemed an ancient artifact of untold power. Perhaps
if he could steal it secrets, he might become master to powers beyond even death. There was no time, however. The muscles had to be boiled. He tossed the relic aside and continued with his preparations.

When the meal was finally cooked after a phantasmagoria of distractions, he set it down proudly on the table. Borgaucho sighed with relief. He had managed to avoid the wrath of an gluttonous spirit while cooking by pawning him off on a parasitic colony of sprites housed in a green bean. Now, in peace,
he could enjoy his meal regardless of whether his date would show up or not. He sat and sank his fork into the paella. Just then his plate shook, rippling with some harmonic force. His taste buds wept as the paella separated itself into its distinct ingredients, each neatly delineated in spherical mounds around his plate. There was a rapping at his door. What now, he thought. The wooden door burst apart, splinters careening every which way and sticking into the walls of his apartment. A burly red-gray demon stood in the doorway panting. Its eight pairs of tits drooped nearly to its ankles. Slowly in lumbered the demon over to Borgaucho. It plopped down into the chair across from him. "How many times do I have to tell you acolytes that I always prefer cookies to paella for my summoning ritual?!" Borgaucho sighed. He handed the monstrosity a fork.