For several decades, I’ve threatened to publish a regular newsletter. I think I may have actually published one edition back in the 80s. Then came blogs, and I thought, “Now, it’ll be easy to post something on a semi-regular basis.” But, it never happened.

But now, I have something to report! I’ve started a podcast. Not a weekly one where I ramble on about inconsequential minutiae, but rather a podcast where small business owners tell me about their work – their roots, their goals, their missions, their challenges, their successes. I call it “This Town.” Yes, the podcast has the same name as this blog.

Back in the early-to-mid 80s, I ran the TV studio at the University of Central Oklahoma. Normally, the students produced all of our programming. But in the summer, with fewer students around and the ever-present need to fill the same amount of program hours, I hosted a monthly cable show that I called This Town Edmond.

The inspiration for the title came from a Frank Zappa and Mothers of Invention song from their film 200 Motels. The song was titled “This Town is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich With the Wrapper On.” I simply abbreviated it for broadcast purposes because one of the main rules of broadcast writing is to be brief. By the way, 200 Motels was the first motion picture to be shot and edited on videotape then transferred to film for theatrical distribution.

In the early 90s, I edited a newsletter for the Oklahoma City chapter of the International Television Association, and for that I wrote a monthly column also called This Town. It recounted the slightly fictionalized exploits in the early years of my career at Video One, Inc., OKC’s first video production company. In the column, that I wrote under the pseudonym Fred O. Bishop, I changed Video One to Ace Video. I doubt that I fooled anyone who knew me back then. More about Fred O. Bishop in future post.

If I can find the old floppy disk, I just may post those old columns here, just for fun. And to give me something to post.