You know the great thing about being asked to review something? I get to obsess over things that don’t matter, I can bitch about even the tiniest detail and really run with it. SO MUCH POWER! No wonder people like Yelp!
Anyway I quite liked Tactical Pay Radio but if just say “it’s awesome, listen to it” I’m pretty sure the internet will go into withdrawal. If folks aren’t bitching it’s not the internet! So I’ll start with some good stuff and then pick something pointless and minor and make a big deal about it. Man, this is fun!
The good stuff is just plain making a decent product. I know right? Who thinks like that? There’s a reason there are a zillion F-150’s in a world where Elon Musk makes the papers launching a damn Tesla into space. It’s because the F-150 gets the job done just fine, no muss, no fuss. If you want to have a nice product, be the F-150 and not the Elon’s ego with wheels. (Seriously, will Tesla ever hit a sales target? But I digress.)
Tactical Pay Radio has a simple thing going strong and it’s perfect. A low key interview about something tactical. One guest per show. The guy doing the interview doesn’t hog the scene. There are no fire-breathing rants, no boring lectures, no bitching at the audience, etc…
It’s nice to listen to something “tactical” that isn’t whining that I, a mere schlub in the audience, hasn’t done 60 push ups and bought another Ar-15 in the last hour. You know how these things can go off the rails; “If you didn’t gut a wildebeast with a salvaged windshield wiper this Tuesday you’re not serious about self defense!” It’s nice that Tactical Pay Radio has stayed… dare I say it? Sane!
Also there’s no logistical bullshit. When you click on their web page you’re almost instantly listening. It’s as if they welcome you as their audience. Sometimes I click on a podcast and they want me to subscribe with my iTunes account (which I don’t have) to link my iPhone (which I don’t have) to a rectally implanted Siri connection (which everyone seems to have). There’s this idea that I should subscribe with my e-mail address, mother’s maiden name, DNA sample, and favorite flavor of Lucky Charms. When a podcast gets like that I’m outta’ there. I’m just too damn much of a Curmudgeon to be hassled by media.
Also the timing is perfect. Half an hour or maybe 45 minutes. This is where they’re better than me. I piss on a tree stump and it’s a six part 1,200 words per post saga. (There’s no cure for me. I’m just a warning for others about what not to do.) The short Tactical Pay Radio podcasts last about as long as it takes me to fire up my workshop woodstove and get some shit done but not long enough to cramp my style.
Incidentally, I don’t normally listen to podcasts unless I’m doing something with my hands that doesn’t require deep attention. That means fixing shit in my shop but not necessarily lofting a boat’s keel where I’ll screw up scribing angles or messing with finger eating blades. If it’s a long and in-depth podcast I get all out of sorts with the cycle of shit to do and stuff to listen to. It’s like when you’re at the bar and you’re 1/2 beer out of sync with the rest of the drinkers in your party. I hate it. (I’ve been meaning to do more podcasts while in my truck but for driving I usually stick with Great Courses lectures.)
Anyway, most of the podcasts I listen to are a bit long. Good for TacticalPay for keeping it short. (BTW: my favorite podcasts are Hardcore History and while the subject matter is superb, they’re both impossibly complex to login and super long. TacticalPay needs to talk some sense to those guys at Hardcore History.)
Finally, Tactical Pay Radio keeps it light. Thanks guys! There’s a depressing sameness to podcasts that focus on the negative and this goes doubly true for anything with “Tactical” in the name. I’m glad they’re pretty laid back. They don’t beat you over the head with doom and gloom. It’s refreshing.
OK, I need to bitch about something. First of all my coffee got cold and that’s something I should blame on external forces… it was either Tactical Pay Radio or Russian collusion. Second, their opening audio, the first few seconds of the podcast, is super lame.
Honestly, this is completely irrelevant but I did notice it. Every podcast (or video cast or whatever the social media people are calling them this week) needs an “opening sequence”. It doesn’t have to be long but it should be awesome. The Tactical Pay Radio opens like… um I dunno, like something that won’t be awesome. It’s only the initial 15-30 seconds but sheesh guys, get yourself a sexy woman or dub in the sound of an explosion or something. I know it hurts to hear it from me, but I’m here to help. Crank up the interest on your first bit of the show, do it for good old Curmudgeon. I love ya’ man, just throw me a bone OK?
Here’s an what I mean:
Audio: the first 35 seconds of Radio Gormogon. Here’s a link to Season 2 Episode 5 (chosen at random). Even if you’re in a hurry, just listen to the intro. CLICK ON IT! I don’t care if you listen to the whole show (I didn’t) but man what an intro. It’s just pure audio overdrive. It leaves me dying to hear the rest of the show.
Video: the first 12 seconds of Arron Clarey’s Asshole Consulting Podcast. I’m talking the first 12 seconds y’all. It’s only the intro but it’s pure visual bliss. Beautiful lighting, arrogant posture, liquor, fire, a woman screaming obscenities. It’s damn near Shakespearean. Captain Capitalism knows how to start a show. As with Radio Gormogon I chose the episode at random, I don’t care if you listen to the whole thing, just watch the first 12 seconds. Does it not entice you to watch more?
So there you have it. I loved TacticalPay Radio but expressed myself by obsessing over other places that do better in the first 8-12 seconds. I’ve got this internet thing NAILED!
Hardcore History is a good one. Our/my schools do a horrible job with history, it’s called Social Studies now. The World War 1 series was a serious reveal of the absolute horrors of the trenches. Dan Carlin is quick to say he is not a historian, but that point is hard to prove.
Thanks for reviewing. I listened to a couple episodes yesterday after you mentioned it. It’s decent long form interview. Overall nice.
I like Hardcore History as well. It is impossibly long and convoluted in presentation. I don’t know how they would do the material in 20 minute episodes tho. It’s like a long documentary movie. Effort, but usually the effort is rewarded.
TacticalPay, thus far, is no effort at all. Yet it is still entertaining and educational. Those guys are onto something if they can sustain it.
“twirly sprite things”?
Also, the first link wouldn’t play for me. Undoubtedly problem at my end.
And, couldn’t play the second link ’cause, well, video doesn’t work on my machine.
Oh, look, I bitched about two thing which are both my problem. I’m gonna drink more now.
Loved the review, AC.
This is so weird. I clicked and listened on a stupid little Kindle Fire (which is technologically just a cheap ass Android tablet) so I assumed it was no hassle to listen to these guys. I’m really surprised. I’ll have to write another post where I bitch ’em out about their logistics.
Nah, don’t hurt their feelings. I’m actually rather sure the issue is on my end.
Duck ‘n Cover? Check.
Carb? Check.
Clutch? Check. (Can you even buy a manual nowadays?)
Rotary? Check, with a party line! Usta walk a half-mile to the neighbors because, yet again, they were off hook making the whole neighborhood incommunicado. OTOH, we all got to listen to ’em fight.
Don’t forget getting up and walking to the TV to change the channel (assuming you had the luxury of more than one channel).
Oh, I had forgotten that one. We had three channels that were usually mostly viewable. As the kid, I was Dad’s remote control.
Yep. Kids were Dad’s remote.
I also remember “warming up” a TV; turning it on a few minutes before you want to watch it to let the thing actually show a proper picture. At the time that seemed really annoying. Oddly, when I’m in a hotel the digital wizardry of the age takes a few minutes to “boot up”. So maybe that one is coming back in style.
Huh, I didn’t mind the tubes warming up- it heightened the anticipation of ingesting my dose of mind-numbing pablum. The digital delay actually does irritate me as I expect “modern” stuff to be better than the old stuff.
That few-minute boot up in the hotel lets the digital tv can scan your face for the NSA’s database. The internet says it’s true, so always wear your Groucho Marx glasses in your room.
If I may quote the bio: “Brett Grayson is a history teacher in Houston, Texas. He has enjoyed learning about guns since his first clay shoot at Boy Scout camp in 1996. Brett is evangelistic about hearing and eye protection, and takes pride in being known as a “gun guy”!” 1996? I mean, 1996? This is a whelp that never knew a Journey without Steve Perry! He probably never watched a moon launch. This is a guy that never knew “Duck and Cover” in his school because the Russkies were sending 200MT nukes and if we faced an interior wall and covered our necks with a thick book we’d survive long enough to enjoy the slow, lingering death of radiation poisoning! I’ll listen to him but I refuse to let these young folk automatically assume they know a damned thing! Now if you’ll pardon me, I have crabgrass to attend to…. Seriously, 1996? My God, when did I grow old?
Amazing ‘aint it? It sneaks up on ya. One day I’m the youngest guy in the room and nobody listens to me because they’re a bunch of clueless geezers and an instant later I’m the oldest guy in the room and nobody listens to me because they’re wet behind the ears nimrods who aren’t about to take advice from a geezer.
This guy probably never experienced how to start a car with a carburetor when it’s cold, shifted with a clutch, or dialed a rotary phone. And he’s teaching history! Kids these days!
lol! I’ve definitely ruined a clutch or two, used a rotary phone, and watched several different the moon landings. And you can bet that as a teacher, my students give me daily – no, hourly – reminders that I am “old”.
Thank you for reviewing the podcast! A few months ago, my buddies at Tactical Pay asked me to host it despite having never spoken into a microphone before (outside of karaoke). Btw I definitely remember Journey without Steve Perry. You’re talking about the Filipino guy, right? hah!
Anyway, I really enjoy talking guns and interviewing experts in the gun industry, so it’s been a great fit. Thanks again for reviewing. We will probably re-do the intro, and I’ve got room to improve in my interviewing skills, for sure. So feel free to rip the podcast a new one whenever you want.
Fun website you’ve got here, btw! Time to look around and read some old posts…
Excellent vid link with Cappy, and will have to check out the others later when I recover from work sufficiently. Dang 12 hour days…