I visited Austin, Texas for this first time in 1991. I was there to attend my sister's wedding. I was 14. I was watching tv at her apartment one night and was amazed at the public access television there. Fucking anybody could have a show after a short wait on a list. One show was a bunch of teenagers sitting on the couch, stoned out of their mind, talking about sex. I would so fuck her, one would say. We'll both fuck her! The other would say. Another show was two guys sitting on a couch drinking beer in various places. They would never talk. No guests. Just two guys sitting on a couch drinking beer, only ocassionally dipping into a cooler to pull out a cold one. I still have yet to see anything like that on public access. At least where I live, where public tv has been hijacked by old ladies wanting to give you a Boston Pops DVD if you make a $500 donation to the station. Fucking weak.

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts for about 4 months or so, and I kind of get the same feeling I do when I watched public access tv for the first time. Most that I've found are professional, and only get my attention if someone says a swear. The guys at Diggnation drink beer and seem to considerably get fucked up while talking about Tech news. Soccergirl Inc is one of those "hippie for the sake of being hippie" types who gets by on little more than shallow discourse disguised as something of signifcance, kind of like my blog, but gets away with it more because she'll occasionally show her jugs on her blog which is never bad even though her face kind of hurts. Bicyclemark remains my hero, taking true public access media to the next level with discussions on everything from the political structure of Amsterdam to working as a waiter in Greenwhich Village to Apple computers. The way it should be.

Video iPods will take the podcasting game to the proverbial next level. While blogging has a way of reminding us that not everyone is a great or even interesting writer, and podcasting makes drinking and cussin' even more fun than usual, vidcasting will show us that anyone at all can be an amateur pornographer, which is what the internets is all about.