News & Views - September 24, 2006

[dude]

Hi Gang,

A project that has been simmering on the back burner is having the flame turned up in the next few days. On September 30th we're launching AwesomeDude Radio for our AwesomeDude Community. This is to be an evolving project with participation by AwesomeDude authors, editors and editors. Initially, we'll be offering 24/7 music programming and then add news, current affairs and other programming produced by our own folks or by outside sources.

We've arranged for music licensing ?one of the biggest hurdles- for serious webcasters through a Joint Public Licensing agreement with ASCAP and BMI through SWCAST. Some of the things we'll be doing is interviews with our various authors hosted here at AwesomeDude ? poetry read by our own poets ? short stories by our own authors.

In addition to ?I won't say how many years- commercial broadcasting experience, I am proud to have been one of the pioneers in webcasting for the LGBT community with the GAYBC radio network, as its News Director and actually moved back to the States for it's brief lifetime. Many of the staff regrouped under the heading of Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ 106 LGBT channel, where I am now morning news anchor ?yeah even from Borneo.

About AwesomeDude Radio, technically, we'll be dual streaming with 22 mp3PRO Shoutcast streams at 56K which are playable if you have Winamp, Real Media, QuickTime or iPod players installed on your computer. For those with only Windows Media... there are 20 streams in that format. Music selection is basically 60's, 70's & 80's plus more modern LGBT music. Some of our authors will be sending along some original music as well. Contributions of music in mp3 format are welcome... as we are licensed to broadcast most selections.

You might ask ... 'Hey, why bother?' Well I've been in Broadcasting all my life and it is something I can't change anymore than the color of my eyes or my sexual orientation. I guess radio folk have the dream to someday own their own station... and I guess this is my shot at it. It's like the writing itch many of our authors have... you gotta scratch it. I expect to be spending a lot of time with AwesomeDude Radio and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you do the AwesomeDude websites and the AD Forums.

Now on to the stories at hand:

Seraph by Camy ? Chapter Two has been posted early in the week by Camy as he makes the plunge in to writing a serialized novel. An excellent effort so far!

Opportunity Cost by Ryan Miller Chapter 9 ? This chapter ?a long time coming- takes a dramatic turn. Don't say I didn't warn you!

The Garden by Nevius ? Chapter 21 ? Nevius keeps the high level of story interest again this week... something not easy to do.

Heart of The Tree by Graeme ? Chapter 10 ? This chapter begins Part Two of the story 'Where Is The Heart?'

On the horizon ? we have a couple of serial stories by members of our AD Forums we'll be introducing very soon. Watch for them!

A reminder... we are asking for Halloween short stories for publication at the end of October. Ghosts, goblins, witches, trolls ?well maybe NOT trolls- are all welcome.

Don't forget to check out Gabe's Poetry Picks and Dude's Story Picks for fairly recent stuff you might have missed or might just want to read again.

Also... if you have some time.. try scrolling down our Authors List on the left margin of the AwesomeDude Home Page, you might find something you'd like read listed there.

That's about it. We're running the final tests on AwesomeDude Radio this week and will hook it all up on Saturday, September 30... after which we'll ask you to 'stay tuned.'

Have a great week of reading... as always.

[DesDownunder]

Great news Dude, all this and radio too, it must be Heaven!

Will you be transmitting in stereo?

I grew up with radio somewhat before TV so I can empathise with radio being in your blood.

May I make a suggestion that if anyone can organise it, a radio play might be featured every now and again. I think it would be interesting at least, to see if anyone could write and produce a play suitable for your radio's transmission.

Some guidelines would need to be set re sex content etc., but it should not be too hard to do.

How about 5 minute (or less) segments of reports from various parts of the world?

Sort of like "A letter from London" that Alistair Cooke did many years ago for the BBC and syndicated all around the world.

You could have "Never -Never News from Australia," for instance. (insert smiling kangaroo emoticon here.)

These would not necessarily be political or just news about GLTB items but could cover a wide variety of topics at your discretion along with your subscribers desires.

The author could record them and send to you for consideration.

I am so excited. Now all I have to do is work out how to receive your broadcasts.

All the best.

[blue]

Des, if you have any kind of broadband web connection (cable, DSL, and so on) and you have a media player such as RealPlayer, iTunes, or Windows Media Player that can handle streaming audio or video, then you have all you need to listen.

Radio plays? Oh wow, now there's an idea. If each author (ahem, voice actor) records his lines, those can be joined together in production. The voice director would need to give each actor tips on the character's moods and voice. That's ambitious, but it's worth a try.

I'm starry-eyed with excitement. (Yes, Blue has that "oh, I always wanted to be a star" daydream.)

...It doesn't hurt that since returning to church, I've been getting complements on rejoining the choir. Yeah, it's all goin' to my head. ...Yes, gay guy in a choir robe. ...I just went completely off-topic.

[DesDownunder]

I'm too busy laughing hysterically to reply.

[carolinascribbler]

Awesomedude Radio sounds, well...AWESOME!