Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Crank Up The A/C
Wednesday
June 1, 2011
"Oh, but Los Angeles ain't that far
And the rest of the girls said they'd be there by my car"
-My Morning Jacket "By My Car"
When it comes to what most people consider to be a comfortable temperature, I'm clearly in the minority: I like it cold. Not bitter cold, not freezing in the fall wind without a jacket, but give me 55 degrees over 85 degrees any day. Reading various friends complain on Twitter in the late winter and spring about how they were bummed out by colder-than-typical weather, wishing for temps that I consider insanely hot, actually made me angry.
Of course, I'm in the minority on this, and I recognize that fact. But it's frustrating to go to my parents' house, for example, and find the temperature set at, say, 75 degrees in mid-May. I typically have to make a bee-line to the thermostat to adjust the setting to a much cooler one. For me, colder is better; what might be comfortable for some would have me breaking out in a sweat.
I don't enjoy this reality, but it's my reality nonetheless. Thank goodness Stacy also prefers cooler temps, as for whatever reason many women I've encountered in my life like the temperature to be at what I consider to be a stifling warm level. When I filled out that eHarmony survey back in 2008 I don't think they asked anything about preferred household temperature, but she and I were a match on that like we were on so many other things.
You'd think that perhaps I would have adjusted to warmer weather during my 5+ years in living in the Tampa area, but alas that wasn't the case. What people who haven't lived in a variety of places tend to overlook is that, yes, it gets warmer earlier in the year and stays warmer later into the year in the south, but hot weather can hit just about anyone living in the United States. And, when it's 95 degrees (as it has been over the past several days in Nashville), it's not as if the temps in Florida are in the 110 degree zone or anything insane like that.
At the same time, there is a direct correlation between the population explosion that happened in Florida (and other coastal southeastern cities) and the advent of air conditioning as a reasonable (and expected) household feature. My friend Zack, who lives in the Nashville area, had his A/C go out over Memorial Day weekend. From what he has told me, the maintenance staff at his apartment complex was less than speedy about repairing his unit's failed air conditioner. The timing was brutal with temperatures being so high over the holiday weekend, and as of last word the best fix they could get him was a temporary window unit. Better that than nothing, I suppose.
Tonight I tried unsuccessfully to hang up the brackets for some heat-blocking curtains. After hearing me fail at that attempt (and then yell angrily), Stacy asked to take a shot at it. Sure enough she worked her magic, and in about five minutes she had the curtains installed. Wow, that made me feel foolish, though doing physical work has never been my strong suit. "When you said you didn't need any help with it, I thought that might be trouble," Stacy said (and I'm paraphrasing on that). Normally I'd hang my head in shame, but we're a team, and on this one I needed her help to get it set up properly. All's well that ends well, and the curtains are in place. Hopefully they will keep the heat out as advertised.
I'm contemplating options for putting together an online radio broadcast and/or recording some demo shows with my friend Suzy Q, who I've known since my Tampa and who now lives in Los Angeles. A good multi-person show requires proper chemistry among the show members, provided that it's not a one-person program, and it's my belief that Suzy and I would play off each other quite well and put together a strong show. Between my producing background, our mutual knowledge of the radio business, and our collective experience working in both radio and TV, I think we could put collaborate to do some entertaining shows.
The problem is finding a way to make it happen that would live up to my standards. Thanks to living in the internet era, doing a radio show online is a possibility with a fraction of the equipment and certainly the cost of doing a show for terrestrial radio, not to mention the lack of restraints on content that an internet outlet would offer.
At the same time, there are plenty of internet radio shows out there that have poor production values. If we were to do a show, I wouldn't want it to sound like it was recorded in a cave. Bandwidth issues could be a problem, and there would be the inherent difficulty of trying to do a show where you can't see the other person (or people) with whom you are talking. Plus there are music clearance issues and other headaches that come with the territory for doing a non-terrestrial radio show.
I'm not quite sure what the best way to make it work will be, much less how to do it in a way where it could potentially be profitable. I know I can draw an audience from Draft King; I've been fortunate enough to develop a strong following there from both regular readers and people who stop in every now and then to check up on things. But having an audience and making money off that audience are two different things altogether.
At the very least, it's something that I'm brainstorming at this point. I've held off on doing any Draft King football-related podcasts in no small part because, when and if I do something like that, I want it to be first-rate. So, for now, I'm looking into what makes the most sense and what options might exist for creating some quality radio/internet broadcasts.
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