Thanks, Mike

Everybody know the feeling of wanting to express in words something that they feel, something that they know, but at the same time, no matter how hard they try, the proper language escapes them.
I can't properly express how it felt to put my hands into the Atlantic Ocean. That moment changed my life. Or looking down on Ottawa from the peak of the Peace Tower. I can tell you it was impressive, that emotions welled up in me, that I felt so blessed just to be there! that I nearly wept, but the old saying holds true: words escape me.
But every once in a while, you manage to hit the nail on the head. Well, I put my finger on it today. It's not a major, cataclysmic life-changer like traveling to another part of the country or sharing a once-in-a-lifetime conversation with a stranger on a completely different walk of life than you. It's more of a river eroding a rock type of change. Slow. Intentional without being aware.
I know why I like listening to podcasts. Some reading this will be disappointed that that's all I've got, that's my whole revelation. A long life of being a disappointment has prepared me to not care.
I was simply sitting in a food court, listening to an awful show, and I realised why it was that I was such a fan, even of the bad stuff: because it's new. And on the back of that happy discovery came a dawning realisation, one much grimmer. Sometimes, alas!, music can stagnate.
How many bands do I like? A fair number. But I want more. I want to be touched by more bands, I want to discover new music, I want to find another band that speaks to me the way Coheed does, or The Mars Volta, or mewithoutYou. I know it's out there, that music. The sheer law of averages commands it. So while I wait for that music to come my way, and believe me, I want to start making advances into more and new music, podcasts afford me the ability to listen to something that I haven't heard before. I get to know the people sitting on the other end of the process, and I've been lucky enough to even participate a couple of times in the creation of said.
It feels like, and is, a case of me knowing so much about the person on the podcast and them not knowing a thing about me, much the same as a fan of a band can tell you the lead singer's first high school band and what their EP was called. How well do I know Sanchez? Pretty well, I would say. Of course there are blank spots, but look at it relatively. How well does she know me?
Podcasts offer me a look into someone's life, I hear stories about how they were raised, and by whom, and trouble they got into, or didn't get into when they ought to have, or the music they like (which is great) or the sex they've had, the places they've camped, the cars they've driven, the conversations they've had. I hear highs and lows. And I know that as much as I am One Among The Fence, being part of a band's fanbase is nothing compared to being part of the Whorde.
I don't want to belittle music. Music is one of the most important things to me in my entire life, and I would hate for that to change. Even writing this, I can recall seeing bands live, sweating in a pit, screaming at the top of my lungs for hours on end, and let me tell you, God, there is nothing, NOTHING like that. But when you're stuck in a bit of a rut, new music-wise, as I seem to be, you strive for something new.
I want new music. I love the feeling of getting absolutely lost in 'Day Of The Baphomets' or 'Cassandra Gemenni' or 'The Willing Well' or 'The End Complete' or 'King Beetle On A Coconut Estate'. But it doesn't happen everyday.
Now, listening to a story teller stringing one hell of a yarn? Yeah, I can do that every day.