I am finding it harder and harder to do both podcasts that we currently put out. The problem isn't really a question of production and productivity, but the very nature of doing a show about politics. No matter what you do some people are going to get upset about it (and likely think the host is some sort of moron/monster/Nazi/Libertarian/Communist/Gay/homophobe/radical/Code Pink/PETA/Militia Member/ Glenn Beck-Keith Olbermann wannabe).

Now I wouldn't mind this normally (after all, it comes with the territory if you are going to put out a show about politics, right?) but it is not only making some of our history audience mad at me, but it has me second guessing content for the Common Sense show.

I am finding myself listening to a show before we release it thinking; "How will the history listeners react to this?" which has a way of unconsciously affecting what we do in a direction that is less edgy and more "vanilla". But doing that probably wouldn't fix the problem of angry HH listeners, and would lose us the people who like the fact that CS deals with the important issues in a unique way.

Finally I said to "Ben" today that I just can't sit there and double-analyze everything we do to make sure we aren't going to come off in a way that doesn't really represent what we are (seen any of the podcast reviews comparing me to Glenn Beck all of a sudden? Yeah, sure, THAT's really what I need...).

We are just going to do what we do, since I think the product ends up more to our liking when we do, and we will let the chips fall where they may. My head will explode if I keep worrying about the reaction of our non-political audience to our political show. I hope we don't lose too many listeners (or potential opportunities), but I find that fretting about that isn't good for creativity. And I figure that if the creativity goes, we pretty much are doomed anyway.