EFFIZODE 8 OF "THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH" RIGHT HERE! BOO! NO, DON'T BOO MY
SHOW!

Here we are on the eve of All Hallows Eve and I have done a VERY SCARY
PODCAST!

And that's different from usual how?

Oh, this is my own little way of celebrating Halloween. It's my little way
of dressing up in a scary outfit, jumping out and saying "Boo!" (To
paraphrase Orson Welles.) I hope you like it in my podcasting the
theater-of-the-mind way.

Please tell your friends about this podcast. Really, the subscriptions for
this podcast are dismal. From what I've seen on iTunes there's hardly a
blip. But that's okay. It's free for you, it's free to make, except I'm
wasting time, and time is money, as is typing this, so I'm just using commas
because I've wasted enough time on proper grammar and periods.

...

So thanks for reading this and listening to the podcast which you can find
here...

http://ping.fm/wyC8q

And as usual the link for the iTunes subscription is at
http://ping.fm/qJx3G

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! And Happy Election Day! Make sure to vote or I'll come
back and haunt you...while you complain about the state of the world and how
you don't have a right to gripe because you didn't vote! Thanks! Bye.

THIS TUESDAY IS ELECTION DAY! WWWWWHAT?!?

Yes, by now you have been inundated (and by inundated I mean held down by an
arm sticking out of your TV screen telling you more about politicians and
propositions than you ever wanted to know) by all the political ads. DO NOT
BELIEVE A WORD OF IT!

Vote for whatever and whomever. Just please do me a favor and do this
country a favor and DO NOT GET YOUR INFORMATION FROM THE TV! Everything you
see is slanted some way: you're just getting the story that sells or looks
good.

The facts, I'm afraid, are not easy to get. You need to dig into the
internet. Search key phrases and names. Click on several choices and
INVESTIGATE. Don't simply do what your party tells you to do (and don't
just accept blindly the "voting pamphlets" they send out). Vote with your
brain. Vote like a free-thinking, non-brain-washed individual. You live in
America, the land of the free! You are free to vote whatever way you like
despite what people, organizations, and media tell you. Vote and be proud
of your vote. Just please vote. The people staying home this year are the
biggest fools of all!

There's not much time left. Before you check what all your friends are
doing on facebook and the latest sports scores, search some of the names of
the politicians and propositions. Realize that some websites, like TV, have
their slants, so take everything you see with a grain of salt. This Tuesday
will be one of the most interesting election days we've seen in a while. Be
a part of it. Whatever the outcome, at least we'll be able to say America
has spoken! So speak from YOUR brain and not the brains of those yelling at
you through the TV screen.

WHEN WALKMAN ROAMED THE EARTH

Well they announced late yesterday that the Walkman was not being
permanently discontinued, just in Japan. Okay. That's great. But I'm not
going to buy a new Walkman any time soon.

Contrast that with 1988. I was riding the Greyhound down to San Diego to
visit a friend of mine. I carried a duffle bag and a backpack full of
cassettes including one I had picked up at Music Plus in their bargain bin.
It was a Roxy Music cassette. Using the Walkman I realized that I was one
of the few American heterosexual boys that loved Bryan Ferry. His voice
forever reminds me of San Diego. That's strange. The guy's British and
probably has spent a total of five minutes there, but in my mine, they're
one. They're fused.

There were other things I learned on my 4 hour Greyhound Walkman trip.
Batteries in a Walkman last maybe 2 hours of continuous use. Suddenly, you
start to notice songs' tempos getting slower, and the singer's voice getting
lower. After a while you realize you're probably doing irreparable damage
to this priceless cassette. I put new batteries in, the music still sounds
slow. That's when I incorporated the "smacking the cassette flat on a flat
surface as hard as possible without breaking the cassette" to loosen the
wheels holding the tape. That sometimes worked I was pleased to discover.

I love the digital age. I embrace it. The fact that I can listen to hours
of music on MY PHONE while I'm traveling puts an endless smile on my face.
Cassettes, as nostalgic as I get about them, and the Walkman, even in its
constantly skipping CD state, will never compare to the wonders of the mp3
player.

One particular cassette that I loved I made at a radio station I worked at
as an intern and then later an on-air personlity. The mix tape was called
"Finn's Fine Young Tape." This was because it contained the Fine Young
Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" (a new song at the time) as well as a
Crowded House song called "Recurring Dream" and the lead singer of that band
is Neil Finn. Thus, Finn's Fine Young Tape. I listened to that collection
over and over again. Most of the songs on that were new when I made it in
1988, including a song by a group called Voice of the Beehive called "Don't
Call Me Baby." They were a poppy, Bangles-esc band with two female lead
singers a la B52's and a couple male singers who were from Madness ("Our
House" in the middle of our street). Recently, thanks to Rhapsody, I
rediscovered them!

That song, "Don't Call Me Baby," was playing over and over in my head, so I
had to look them up. Sure enough, Rhapsody had them and that song since
apparently it peaked at number 15 on the American pop charts. I loved it!
My wife thought I was nuts. Soon, however, she was enjoying that and some
of the other cooky lyrical songs they have. The video is typical lame 80's
pap, but you can get a feel for the song on youtube at
http://ping.fm/7stA0 Oh, and the drummer kinda looks
like U2's drummer...was he moonlighting?

So thank you digital age, thank you Rhapsody, thank you mp3 player
technology. Even so, I have kept all my cassettes and dust them off once in
a while when I'm downstairs where I have my only cassette player. Some day,
those little bits of tape will completely disintegrate, and Sony will put
the axe on all Walkman production, even in America. But the memories will
live on...even bizarre ones that were made on a 4 hour ride to Bryan Ferry's
San Diego.





Mike's blog and podcast are at
http://ping.fm/sVxN4

Here's THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH podcast 7 and the connected BLOG!

THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH podcast 7!!!

So in this podcast I explain why the long hiatus between podcasts. I know,
as a Mike Matthews' Podcast Picnic consumer, you DEMAND that you have your
podcast in a timely and hilarious fashion. So here it is. Perhaps not so
timely, perhaps not so hilarious.

Oh, so I also discuss my fear of facebook taking over the world. How many
social network sites are trying to make it or have been trying to make it
and always get trounced by fb? I think it seriously has to do with the
hysteria that surrounds it. How did you find facebook? If you were like me
you were RECRUITED by someone you knew. And honestly, I didn't really even
really know the person who recruited me...really. And was that person paid
by Mark Zuckerberg to recruit me? Heck no! So by my admission it is my own
fault that I succumbed to the allure of what I thought was a new and
interesting website. Turns out it was just another fad. Another wave of
fashion. Rubic's Cube anyone?

The fact is someday, it could be next year or the year after that or the
year after that, people will get tired of facebook. They'll get tired of
the privacy issues, of living their life vicariously through a website.
Someday the tide will change.

Until then, thanks facebook for letting me promote this podcast on your
website! Gee, biting the hand that feeds means nothing when the hand makes
billions of dollars a year!

Here's the latest "effizode" of THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH! Click on the link
below...

http://ping.fm/ZHtQ7

Blimey, we're up to 7 podcasts now! Where has the time gone? (No, that's
what people say after they listen to the show...where did my time go? My
precious, precious time!)

Oh, and if you want to subscribe on iTunes (there's another company with a
little world conquest going on) my link is
http://ping.fm/4KR4j

Thanks!

HERE IS THE SIXTH PODCAST FROM "THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH"!!!

Thanks for stopping at this particular blog and checking out the crazy world
that exists in this one and only podcast called THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH.

This week we see some celebrities! We see some celebrities getting
violent! We see bizarre outcomes! Let's see if that lowly, leech-sucking
TMZ can scoop this! Hah!

So one thing I've learned this week is that if you go to a festival in
Golden Gate park don't be surprised if you leave with your nose permanently
smelling skunk. I went to a big free concert with 4 stages and there was
more pot there than a Sur La Table! (They sell pots...and pans.) I kept
walking into marijuana cloud after marijuana cloud. Geez people, if you
want to legalize pot the rules for cigars and cigarettes still apply...don't
blow your rank smoke in my face! It smells! It smells like a skunk's
behind (not that I've actually tried to quantify this but the reasoning
applies). I hate cigar and cigarette smoke, and really ALL smoke unless
it's a delicious mesquite grill cooking dinner, so show some courtesy and
watch where you're exhaling!

That said, maybe it's time we do finally legalize it. I think this our a
big chance, and no matter who's putting the money behind it, supposedly
cigarette companies and other awful people, I think if we don't do this now
the next window won't be open for many years. Oh, and speaking of windows,
you AIN'T smoking that stuff inside wherever I am if it gets legalized. You
go outside!

So enjoy this show and the craziness that ensues. And once again a BIG
CONGRATULATIONS to the future Gourleys getting married this weekend! The
wedding is going to be awesome, just as the bride and groom are!

By the way, THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is on iTunes now and you get to it by
clicking this link...

http://ping.fm/5TbSs

Or you can click on the link below to listen. Right click on it and save if
you want to listen later when you're doing something else...like smoking
weed...

http://ping.fm/XoIBx

WENT TO FLORIDA AND SAW MOM!

I spoke a little about my trip to Daytona Beach on my podcast at...

http://ping.fm/y1tte

But I wanted to tell you a little bit more about my fun excursion!

First off, I must say I always enjoy seeing my Mom. To explain a little of
Mom's colorful history, she moved here from Germany in 1962 and started off
as an au pair paying off her plane flight and getting a foot hold in the
early 60's California economy.

By the way, she was an au pair in Bel Air! Not too shabby! She didn't know
Will Smith back then (don't think he was born yet, since we're about the
same age!), but she found employment after a year as a maid and worked her
way through some interesting jobs including one as an assistant to the
executive chef at the Ambassador Hotel!

After spending 40 years in California, however, she had had enough, and
decided on moving to Daytona Beach, Florida, after one of the customers at
the her small self-owned video store told her how nice it was. Mom requires
2 things wherever she goes: Wine and a beach. Though Daytona has no where
near the bevy of wine that California has, they do have fantastic
beaches...so she was off!

Driving across America in her tiny used Toyota MR2, Mom saw for the first
time the Deep South. A downpour near Mississippi nearly stopped her as her
little car could barely keep out the rain, but in 5 days she ended up in
Daytona Beach.

This was 2003, and she has loved it ever since