Episode 10 of the Paid to Play Podcast goes live tomorrow. My fledgling podcast will have hit double-digit episodes. That, friends, is pretty freaking awesome!
What’s even more awesome is the thought that I could well keep on going until I hit one hundred episodes. Why not, after all? I’m enjoying my interviews, making new friends of both guests and listeners, learning about audio hardware and editing – who wouldn’t want to keep going?
This relies, though, on my getting at ninety more people on the show. Well, eighty-nine – I already have one more interview recorded.
Who could those eighty-nine people be?
Okay, eighty-nine’s a big number. Let’s just stick with ten for now.
But who could be in that ten?
I keep two lists for this podcast: A personal wish list of folks with whom I’d love to chat and a list of names people have asked me to interview. Rather than rattle off the lot, I thought I’d pick five from each (saves me more for a future post, you see).
Five of Your Requests
I end each episode of Paid to Play by asking you to suggest someone you’d like me to interview (or even volunteering yourself as a guest. A few of you have made requests so far (I still want more, though), and these include, in alphabetical (and no other) order:
Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo. Image from Joy’s web site.
As a fellow poet, my wife Vickie would love me to interview Joy Harjo – and she’s easily one of my most intimidating prospects! She’s a poet, a musician, an actor, an activist – I’m going to do a heap of homework before I schedule with her!
Peter Bishop
It’s intriguing how just by talking about the podcast, my friends and family can scare up new guests. Vickie got talking about Paid to Play at the hairdressers’ one day, and it turned out that the lady doing her hair was married to a very versatile and busy muse-o by the name of Peter Bishop. He’s been everywhere, done everything and played with everybody!
Rachel Popp
I met Rachel when I took our newest dog Sookie to puppy training. She’s a high-energy trainer who runs her own pet grooming, training and day care service called Pupstars. If that’s not getting paid to play, I don’t know what is!
Sharon Hannan
I went into Plan B Cafe not long ago to drop some books off for the reading corner, and owner Leigh (whom I interviewed for Episode 6) was chatting with a lady named Marjorie – who, when Leigh told her about the podcast, immediately suggested I get in touch with Sharon Hannam. She recently won a national Coach of the Year award, and no wonder, when she coached Australian sprinter Sally Pearson to Olympic gold in London this year!
“Weird Al” Yankovic
Weird Al Yankovic. Image from Al’s web site.
I was talking about my interview with Gavin Dunne with the gang at work when one of them turned around and suggested “Weird Al” as a guest. Now, this one will likely be something of a challenge, as I have no doubt Al, whose music parody career spans almost three decades (Transformers: The Movie introduced me to his music via the track, “Dare to be Stupid”), gets interview requests all the freaking time. Still, it’d certainly be a fun chat!
Five From My Wish List
But enough about you, let’s talk about me. Ever since I decided to make my podcast about interviewing people, I’ve had a substantial list of folks I want on. This includes some folks who have already said “Yes,” we’re just tied up in scheduling at the moment.
In alphabetical (and no other) order, they are:
Claudia Christian
I added Claudia to my wish list a few days ago when I stumbled upon her Facebook. I know her for playing the tough, spirited and complex Commander Susan Ivanova on the brilliant nineties science fiction series Babylon 5. She releases her memoir, Babylon Confidential, at the beginning of November.
Claudia is probably as big an ask as Weird Al, but the only way to guarantee I don’t chat with her is to not ask!
Crystal Graziano
Crystal Graziano as Mourningstar form Firefall. Image from the Nerd Appropriate website.
While people have been dressing up for Hallowe’en and parties forever, the “cosplay” hobby is something of a recent phenomenon, mainly as it’s very geek culture focused. It’s widely credited as having started in Japan, and generally involves people home-making costumes of their favourite characters from video games, anime, TV shows and movies and attending geek culture conventions in them. In the last few years, it’s been spreading across the world, with a cosplay group appearing in this year’s Cairns Festival parade.
Crystal Graziano and her husband Todd have been creating cosplay costumes for years; the results look as though they could have come straight from the worlds of the video games they love. Their work got the attention of Red 5 Studios, who employed Crystal to cosplay as one of the characters from their FireFall MMO, a job that has not only sponsored more outfits but also taken her across the globe!
I wonder if I could chat with Crystal and Todd at the same time? I’d love another couple podcast!
Kelly Gurnett
I was all set to interview Kelly, the blogger behind the web log Cordelia Calls It Quits, this morning, but I got my US time zones completely arse about face. I thought her 3PM Friday would be my 8AM Saturday, but it turns out her 3PM was my 5AM! So she wasted an hour or so waiting for me until she had to leave the house for the evening – just as I was getting out of bed!
It’s a shame, not just because I’ve made myself look unprofessional (and an idiot), but also because Kelly writes a fantastic blog about leaving useless things, including bad habits, toxic views of oneself, and anything else that holds her back from living a rich and full life, behind. So far, she’s managed to turn blogging into an almost-full-time endeavour and her day job into a part-time endeavour!
UPDATE: Kelly and I managed to work out our scheduling differences and record an episode of Paid to Play!
Leo Babauta
Leo Babauta. Image from the Zen Habits web site.
On the topic of living a rich and full life, here’s another guy I’d love to get on. In this present, when people are encouraged to set goals, push for success and build their dream lives in order to be happy, Leo writes a pared-back, simple, heartfelt blog that reminds people that they are perfect as they are and that happiness is a state of mind that’s best achieved by simply living the good life we already have instead of waiting for some future dream of happiness.
The blog is, of course, called zen habits.
Leo eats vegan, lives active, home schools unschools his kids, eliminates clutter and tells everyone else how he does it around nine or ten times a month. And I’d love to have a chat with him about how he’s going.
Steve Rothwell
Steve is on the sub-list of current and former colleagues to interview. When I met Steve, he was the motorcycles writer at The Cairns Post. He’s since taken up hosting motorcycle tours of Cairns’ gorgeous tropical surrounds and started his own store for customising two-stroke motorcycles. He’s a fun guy with a lovely Northern UK accent, and chatting with him would be fantastic!
Who else?
There are more than just this ten on the wish and requests lists, of course. On top of those, the list of people with whom I’m working schedules out numbers eighteen.
But I’m still keen to expand those lists, especially the request one – I want to be chatting the people in whose passion-to-paycheque journey you want to follow, asking them the questions you want me to ask about the steps they took (and the ones they’re taking right now)!
Who would you love to sit down and chat with about how they do what they do?
What would you ask him / her / them?
What can you tell others about your own journey that could help them on theirs?
Featured image sourced from Morguefile. Taken by P J Hudson.
